Chance encounters: Attending events may help you in the future

During the 2008 Golf Industry Show, Jones (far right) got to introduce his then 18-month-old daughter Evey to Greg Norman and Chris Evert.

In 2016 I’m going to try to attend as many events as possible, while at the same time not travel so much that I neglect my family. It’s a delicate balance.

In chapter newsletters and magazines I always see chapter presidents pleading with their members to come to regional meetings. I’m a big believer in being there in person, meeting new people, shaking hands. There’s a value to being there that pays off immediately.

Sometimes further down the road, it pays off unexpectedly.

In 2003 my Kansas Jayhawks made the Final Four. A group of us road-tripped to New Orleans for the event. Who knows how many people I met that weekend at the Final Four. It was fun meeting fellow KU fans and the fans of the other teams (Texas, Marquette and eventual champion Syracuse).

Fast forward five years. GCSAA named Greg Norman the 2008 Old Tom Morris Award winner. It was my job to get an interview with him. It wasn’t easy. Norman is a busy businessman.

Norman came to Kansas City for a media event at Stone Canyon GC. I asked his media contact in advance if I could get some one-on-one time with the Shark before or after the event. The answer was “no.”

I attended the media event hoping to talk my way into a one-on-one interview. I found the media contact and tried to convince him I was worthy of Norman’s time. He tried to convince me I was not.

So I took a different route and asked him where he was from and where he went to school. When he said Syracuse, I knew we had a talking point. I told him I’m a KU alumnus and about my hatred for the Orangemen. He laughed. I asked if he went to the ’03 Final Four, and he said he did.

I looked a little harder at him, then asked him if he took a stuffed Syracuse Orangeman toy with a Natural Lite can duct-taped to his hand with him to New Orleans. He paused, gave me a look and said that he did. Then I asked him if he remembered playing three-on-three basketball one night against three similarly intoxicated Kansas Jayhawk fans.

It was then that he realized I was his next-door neighbor at that fleabag hotel we stayed at in New Orleans. “I warned you about Carmelo Anthony!” he shouted. We laughed about the small-world moment we were experiencing.

Finally I said, “Hey man, can you please help me out on this Greg Norman interview?” He smiled and said, “Sure… we can work it out.”

Strange to think that a chance encounter five years earlier is what made the interview happen. Was it luck? Yes. But I made a little of my own luck by taking the time to be there.

You never know whom you’ll meet when you’re out attending events, from the Final Four to the Golf Industry Show. But you know exactly whom you’ll meet if you don’t attend: no one.

Photo by: Judy Romero