that oul golf talk...?

[lawnseed]

what do you talk about on the golf course? some banks pay golf fees for their employees to network believing it to be a good place to do business. but if your running the bank or even the country just what do you spend that time between holes talking about. biffo and seany fitz...? well theres the weather..

[leaveherinsir]

Fcuk me, that would make you wonder, not exactly sure what my fourball talk about.... But at a stab, golf,football,hurling,beer,bowls(?),sex,whether or not you have a set of balls to hole that four foot putt to save £1 on the eighteeneth! But never the AIB!!   

[lawnseed]

what kerry did next.. x factor.. that gimp enda kenny.. hybrid cars.. bensors picture..

[leaveherinsir]

Its actually politics in another guise when you think about it, 4 blokes talking sh1t for 4 hours and nobody being any the wiser at the end of it!!

[Orangemac]

Biffo: Well Seanie, hows the game?

Seanie: Up and down Biffo.

Biffo: Bit like the share price eh, bluddy foreeners?

Seanie: Hows work?

Biffo: Not bad, might be a promotion coming up. Bertie's done for now. Never had a bank account, my arse.

Seanie: Only safe place for money Biffo. Shit, straight into a bunker with that one.

Biffo: I'll give you a dig out with that one Seanie. We'll say nothing.

[Declan]

Myself and my mates talk about lots of things but  here is some advice from Mr FitzPatrick on the importance of the 19th hole.

Quote:
In 2001 FitzPatrick was one of a group of business people asked by the Sunday Business Post for his favourite sources of personal finance  information. 'For information, one of the best sources is FT.com,' he
said. 'For analysis, read the Economist. But for the real McCoy, you can't beat the nineteenth hole on the golf course.

Also
Quote:
At the end of July the banker had played a round of golf with the Taoiseach, Brian Cowen. Cowen was just three months in the top job.  In his tenure as minister for finance, from September 2004 to May
2008, he had failed completely to introduce measures to dampen down Ireland's property bubble or its banks.

On Monday, 28 July, according to a copy of FitzPatrick's Anglo diary, he was with Cowen from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. (Cowen's official diary, released under the Freedom of Information Act, is blank for the same day.) The Taoiseach played a full eighteen holes of golf with the banker on Druid's Heath, a spectacular course at the foot of the Wicklow mountains. After the round the banker and the Taoiseach went for an unscheduled dinner in the golf resort's hotel. What did they discuss? 'The world, Ireland, the economy. I am not going to go into that now with you,' FitzPatrick says, adding, '[It was] absolutely nothing to do with Sean Quinn or with Anglo Irish Bank or anything like that.' It is hard to believe that FitzPatrick and Cowen did not discuss the specifics of Anglo's troubles, but FitzPatrick insists this was the case.
Uncharacteristically, FitzPatrick refuses to be drawn further on the day he spent with Ireland's leader at a most critical time in the  history both of Anglo and the country.

When you see the troubles decent people like the Hartes have to put up with and then you have to listen to Clowen and Seanie etc it makes me want to vomit.

[Banana Man]

Biffo: Well Seanie, hows the game?

Seanie: Up and down Biffo.

Biffo: Bit like the share price eh, bluddy foreeners?

Seanie: Hows work?

Biffo: Not bad, might be a promotion coming up. Bertie's done for now. Never had a bank account, my arse.

Seanie: Only safe place for money Biffo. Shit, straight into a bunker with that one.

Biffo: I'll give you a dig out with that one Seanie. We'll say nothing.

[lawnseed]

fair play to gilmore he didnt back down in the dail today he said biffo was a traitor and he stuck to it. the other fella on the golf course was gary mcgann a director in smurfit, greencore and a major shareholder in anglo as pointed out by sinn fein..
mrs browns boys, the weather, vincent browns hair.. rubarb.. great shot biffo.. and all that
WTF does biffo seriously think the irish people are that dumb? YES HE FUKN DOES!

[lawnseed]

its official the most expensive game of golf ever... it cost the irish taxpayer and his kids and their kids.. billions and billions and billions of euro

[leaveherinsir]

Malachy Clerkin of the Sunday Tribune gets it in (a hole in) one!!

Malachy Clerkin - You want to know what we talk about when we play golf? Nothing. We talk about nothing

Walk and talk: golfers discuss everything, except business Labour's Joan Burton says it's beyond belief that Brian Cowen and Seánie Fitz didn't discuss Anglo during their round of golf at Druids Heath in July 2008. Fine Gael are shaking their heads at the Greens for having to go on with the charade of trusting Cowen when he says they didn't pass a word between them about the bank even as it circled the plughole. The Greens are saying they've done their best to find out what was said but that they're not Sherlock Holmes. Vincent Browne says the idea that it wouldn't have come up in conversation is just not credible.




And all the while, golfers from Malin to Mizen, from Burr to Garraun, of all political hues and none are smiling to themselves and thinking the same thing. Not only is it credible, not only is it believable – it's maybe the safest bet this side of a Tiger Woods tournament win in 2011 that they didn't talk shop in their Footjoys. That evening, with three current or former Anglo board members and a Central Bank economist at the table, absolutely. But en route from the fifth green to the sixth tee or between putts on the short 13th with its sloping green and water off the front? Have any of you ever played golf?




This is no defence of either man, by the by. Maybe they not only talked Anglo on their way round but did so with 15 clubs in both their bags and one of those illegal GPS rangefinders in both their pockets. Nothing would even mildly surprise us anymore. But though golf has its faults – and God knows, golfers are by far the worst of them – this notion of the golf course as some kind of power-wielding arena where deals are done and business brokered has always been oversold. It's the stuff of movie and TV cliché, put around by screenwriters who wouldn't know a 54º wedge from a driving iron.




You want to know what we talk about when we play golf? Nothing. We talk about nothing. Oh, we say words, we hold conversations. We don't go four (ahem, sometimes five) hours in silence. But substance, there is none. And work talk, there is less than none.




Ask most golfers what Seánie's response would have been had Cowen casually asked how Anglo was going and they'll tell you he'd have been on the receiving end of a dirty look and a wave of the hand, Taoiseach or no Taoiseach. "Ah Jesus, don't be talking to me," Fitzpatrick would have said as he put his head down and tried to concentrate very hard on scraping the dirt out of the grooves of his Titleist Vokey Design Spin Milled gap wedge with a plastic tee.




Golfers talk about the most boring guff under the sun, if indeed they're lucky enough to be under the sun that day. If they're not, they'll talk about the rain or their rain gear or the price they got on their waterproofs when Halfpenny Golf had that sale just after Christmas. Or they'll pretend to know what they're talking about when they say the greens are in good nick considering the weather and how it's down to the new drainage system the club had installed at the low end of the course, which was well worth the extra fees last year.




They'll talk about equipment and gimmicks and stroke-savers to beat the band. They'll stand on the tee at a big wide par-five and swap drivers just to see how their partner's feels in the hands. And no matter how it does, at least 87 per cent of the time each golfer's response will be the same. "Very light, isn't it?"




Sport will come up in conversation. Not necessarily golf but not necessarily not golf either. They'll talk about their county or their club. They'll talk about their fantasy team. They'll spend the walk from tee to green on a nice par-three recounting the bet they lost last weekend when their NFL accumulator only just fell down because the poxy Seahawks (grrrr) decided to man up and play for the first time this season. They'll go on at length about who they're backing this weekend.




Most of the time, of course, they'll be talking to themselves. Anyone who thinks these bankers and politicians are hopelessly lacking in moral fibre ought to listen to the level of self-admonishment that goes on during a round of golf. You can be damn sure that the first time Fitzpatrick shanked a drive short and right and into the trees, he'd have come down on himself like a ton of bricks.




"Ah Seánie, what the hell are you doing?" he'd have lamented aloud, as Cowen and Fintan Drury exchanged knowing glances behind him at the back of the tee. What indeed, Seánie. What indeed. That would have been the extent of it though. Otherwise, there'd have been no overt references to Anglo, no grilling him on the greens. Life is just too short to interrupt a grand day out with that kind of chat.




There's one exception, obviously. Let's say Seánie had a six-footer on the last to take the back-nine money. In that scenario, there isn't a golfer alive who could have held his tongue. "So Seánie, this bank of yours..."




Hey, etiquette is all very well and all very noble. But a bet's a bet. And sure who knows that better than Seán Fitzpatrick?

[lawnseed]

good article. but it reminds me of the thread "legitimate targets?" are these guy regular golfing buddies- no. so why would they meet up to play golf at all if it wasnt to and i quote "shoot the breeze" "fund raise" and "discuss ideas for the economy" their words not mine

[lawnseed]

great shot micheal!
'thanks biffo'
'do you think the voters will vote for us now'?
'course they will micky- course they will. this leadership stuff worked wonders for kenny sure hes flying in the poles'.
'jez biffo i hope caoimhghins not about, if he sees us playing golf together...'
'for fuks sake micky there you go again worrying about the voters, hurry up! i think its gonna rain