The Quest for Authenticity in the Projection Age
Since 2021 we’ve hosted an annual indoor golf scramble event for the greens staff community on the west side of the GTA. It began with six teams, and we’ve built it up to nine teams that now play over two days.
For 2025 we expect it to be twelve teams. We cover everything, including the indoor golf in our Trackman-powered golf bays and brunch. The event has also been regularly supported by our primary brewery connection. It’s a genuine ‘Thank You’ to the people who work hard to prepare and maintain our pristine GTA fairways and greens, mostly in early morning beyond the gaze of both members and the green fee-paying public. Golf course conditioning in the GTA is generally excellent, but we may not always appreciate that.
Why do we host this event? Because we expect something in return? No. Because we want to project how ‘nice’ we are? No, not that either. This is a genuine ‘Thank You’, not a PR stunt. This is one of the most important days of the indoor golf season for us.
I grew up playing municipal golf in 1980s UK. As juniors we’d meet members of the greens staff team on the golf course; we’d chat, and often they’d ask to grab a driver and ball from one of us and smash a ball down the fairway. They were mostly enthusiastic and skilled golfers and we loved hanging out with them. Occasionally a ball would disappear into the trees. That wasn’t an issue, as young juniors we’d sometimes go ‘golf ball hunting’ to bolster our supplies for the season. It wasn’t a time when we’d ask our parents to routinely buy us boxes of $75-dollar premium balls as used by the pros. It was a different time.
These greens staff crew members of the mid-late 80s were well represented in our scratch inter-club team. Despite the fact we were a municipal club, we performed well against even the strongest opposition. As a junior I wasn’t quite at that level, but I aspired to be. However, the scratch team did include older juniors. One of them was an England team player who went on to win the Silver Medal as top amateur at the British Open. Things were hardly different when I was able to afford to join a private club on the edge of London in the late 1990s. The head green keeper, as we call them over there, was captain of the men’s scratch team. Everything worked on merit whether an individual was a club member or a staff member. Status didn’t elevate or diminish anyone’s ability to compete with their utmost to represent our club that we were all proud of. So, this background significantly explains why we organise this event each year. We are being true to our origins and values learned and enjoyed in the game of golf. It is not a superficial or fake gesture.
This leads me to the question of authenticity in the digital media age. Society craves authenticity, but in this environment of endless and continuous projection things get confusing. What is genuine and projected with honest intent, and what is superficial and fake? I remember the moment when I realized this is a question we must all confront. A few years ago, through business connections, we were introduced to a social media influencer agency. We were told that contracting to have social media influencers post positive images and comments about our business would ‘make us look more authentic’. I found this baffling. The person telling me had learned the trade of perception projection in the world of political communications and seemed to believe what they were saying.
So perception, or risk of misperception, is something I have to consider if I want to project that we are hosting this event. Will it be perceived as a ‘virtue signalling’ PR stunt? Possibly, and I can understand why. Why would anyone undertake a gesture of goodwill if it doesn’t ultimately result in monetary gain? I cannot be bound by such suspicions that now seem deeply rooted. I will project it on social media, not to show how ‘nice’ we are, but because it’s evidence that we can belong to a community where self-interest isn’t always the primary motivator. This represents a big part of our business identity. That we have retained an amazing team of staff over years, alongside the regular customers that they serve, is testament that being genuinely authentic can work; too much of what we see today is inauthentic.
Thanks for reading this blog. I hope it made sense. I hope the fact I’ve written it all with the hope it will be well received doesn’t undermine its message.
Keith
Co-owner, Swing Golf Lounge
Note: If you’re interested to know, the greens staff teams attending come from the following golf clubs. Private, public and municipal are all represented: