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CRAIG BROWN’S WHY LAWYERS LOVE GOLF

INTRODUCTION

Casual observation suggests that a lot of lawyers play golf. It is not surprising. Golf’s mix of physical and intellectual challenges provides great pleasure to those who participate and even lawyers are entitled to pleasure in their lives. But that is not the whole story. Contact karate and playing the Northumbrian pipes are no doubt pleasurable pursuits to those who partake of them; but you don’t hear of lawyers clamouring to join the societies that cater to those delights in the way they seek membership in golf clubs.

There are aspects of golf especially attractive to lawyers. For one thing, a game of golf is a good way to entertain clients or even negotiate deals in pleasant surroundings; ’networking’ is the current term, ’schmoozing’ is an older one. But this is by no means restricted to lawyers. And there are other pleasant places for schmoozing - like restaurants - where the cost in time and money is much less than golf.

The really significant attraction of golf for lawyers might just be that almost everything to do with the game has a legal angle. Golf and the law seem to have been made for each other. As the following pages show, the game and all its related activities have given rise to a remarkable volume of litigation seemingly out of proportion to the scope of the game itself. On every fairway, in every stretch of rough, in every clubhouse, in every golf bag, at every swing at the ball, in every set of plans for a new course, in every application for club membership, there lurks a potential lawsuit.

If you don’t believe it, read on. Since golf began many of its devotees have found themselves before the courts or have felt the need to summon others there so that the King’s justice or the people’s justice may be served. In the fifteenth century hefty fines were levied against those who defied a ban on the game decreed by a Scottish statute. The law was enacted because golf was a threat to national security. Too many of the stout-hearted had succumbed to the temptations of the links when they should have ...