Golf is a game. Yet it can be business, too.

By Mohinder Singh In a recent poll, 75 percent of Fortune 500 CEO's regularly did business on the golf course.

And now you have women CEOs joining in.

There's even an American company called Business Golf Strategies that teaches companies how to sell on golf course.

Another major sports management group has generated millions in revenue just in fees for organizing corporate outings.

Links are the places which attract a lot of top brass in business and government, and these venues are proving clearly productive in business contacts.

If you play golf, sooner or later, a business round is bound to come up.

Maybe the chance to do a little networking is why you took up golf in the first place.

When you're mixing business with golf, better keep in mind some basic rules so as to derive maximum mileage out of it.

Don't try to squeeze business benefit out of every minute.

At the very least, keep up the pretext that you're all golfing for good play and good company.

Let your group get settled into its game before dragging it round to business topics.

Anyway never talk about business before the 5th hole, better not before the back nine.

Be prepared to drop the topic if the atmosphere is not propitious.

No matter how seriously businessmen take their line of work, they may even be more fanatical about their game of golf.

Let your feel of the individual dictate when to stay off a business conversation.

Never ever cheat or fudge your score, howsoever tempting.

Any hint or even a suspicion of the same will leave an ugly impression about your business practices.

Watch the raunchy humour.

Surely, you want everyone to have a good time.

But unless you know your companions' attitudes and outlook well, you risk offending someone-and hurting your business.

Don't outdo your boss on a golf course; golf is an extension of the work place.

What applies to the boardroom, applies to the fairway, too.

If people want to bet you go along with it; but yourself suggesting bets is not a terribly good idea.

If you lose, lose gracefully and pay promptly.

And if you win, don't gloat or make an issue of it.

Hitting the links sure beats working in office, and it's a great way to get to know the folks that matter to you in your work.

At times you meet pretty top folks, not the ones you run into normally.

Golf can afford excellent opportunities to pursue one's business interests, provided one observes some basic rules.

The first 4 holes are for building rapport, putting the client in the "comfort zone".

Holes 5 through 15 can be for talking business.

Hole 16 through 18 are for making sure, your customer is enjoying himself.

And work for a smooth transition to the 19th hole, the club bar.

The 20th hole is the pay off, back at the customer's office.

The above may be a crude, oversimplified version of what actually happens.

Yet good golfers with easy access to prestigious golf courses can reap tangible business benefits through contacts obtained at play.

Where else can you secure somebody's exclusive company for five hours in pleasing, outdoor surroundings? Golf affords unmatched opportunities of communicating in privacy with someone you happen to play with.

And what's unique about the game is the spirit of camaraderie it engenders among people playing together.

A playing companion of any sex, religion, or place of national origin becomes a friend, caught up in the thrills and travails of the game.

Mutual praise or appreciation, or simple mute witness, constitutes the essence of golf fellowship.

And the joys of retrospect as a foursome gathers at the club bar or cafe at the end of a round.

Golfers tend to behave with elaborate niceness: they repress their coughs while others are swinging, and they avoid stepping in one another's putting lines.

The behaviour is better here than elsewhere, because players are happier here than elsewhere.

The good feelings that golf engenders are inseparable from its aura of being in the open.

The very length of time the game consumes implies lives rich in leisure.

One big advantage that golf enjoys over other physical sports; men and women can play the game at a competent level right into their middle years-often the years when they reach the top in business or professions.