Page 25 - How To Get Rich

Sometimes I will sell memberships while I am hitting balls on the
practice range. People approach me and hand me checks. One recent day at
my Florida course, a group of four wealthy friends came to me with
checks of $300,000 each. I said to myself:Not bad; I’m playing a game I

love and going home with $1,200,000 in my pocket.
I realize that some of you don’t care much about golf. Golf is one of
those things that has aficionados, just as opera has diehard fans who will
fly around the world to catch a certain performance. To people who don’t
know or like opera, that seems absurd.
I can’t make you love golf, but, believe me, once you’ve had the
opportunity to play on a beautiful course, it could turn you into an

enormous fan, or even a passionate player, no matter how poorly you hit
the ball.
If anyone had told me twenty years ago that I’d become a dedicated
golf course developer, I would have sent them out of the room for being
ridiculous. But golf has a transforming power. It’s a brain game. Yes, there
is skill and technique involved, but, just as important, it requires

concentration and assessment.
It’s a great way to improve your business skills, to learn how to
maneuver. It can even be equated with learning how to negotiate, which is
an art in itself.
Golf is also, in essence, a solitary game. Being an entrepreneur, even
within a large company, is a solitary game.
Ultimately, the rule here is not just to visit one of my golf courses

(though you would be wise to do so) but to turn your passion into profit.
The results of that passion will reward you in more ways than you ever
could have expected.
Passion is enthusiasm on a big scale. It is all-encompassing and
consuming. People with passion never give up because they’ll never have

a reason to give up, no matter what their circumstances may be. It’s an
intangible momentum that can make you indomitable.
Take out the passion and you will have a fizzle or, perhaps, an okay
product at best. Add the passion and you will be in a rarefied realm that
every other passionista will recognize—and one that every person would
like to enter.
A friend of mine is a member of what I call the lucky sperm club—
born into a wealthy family. He followed his father to Wall Street, but he