Up in heaven, the Gods of Business and Golf were getting excited.
Yep, there’s a God of Golf!
Gods and Goddesses are born and grow from peoples’ prayers!
Lots of people who do business and play golf do a lot of praying.
But it’s not just peoples’ prayers, it’s also that the people do business, and play golf.
The activity matters, too!
So…
Is there a God of Money, up in heaven?
No.
The trouble with money is that people worship money itself. As a concept, and in it’s particular material form.
The same thing with power.
But, at this moment, the Gods of Business and Golf were looking down at the mortal realm excitedly!
It was Lily’s first game of golf! And it was business golf, the best, tax-deductible kind!
Lily was worried about how she was going to pay the rent for her new restaurant in three weeks, when the month changed.
She was going to owe the rent from the current month, and the rent for the next month, at the same time.
It was a big hurdle! Over a grand and a half!
And that was on top of her other expenses!
But, she gamely followed after the mayor of Three Creeks Village to the local country club.
They had a nice golf course, and even a set of clubs sized for younger kids!
Along the way, the mayor asked Lily about her restaurant and her business.
She explained about the cart, and the food she made, and how popular the food was with the miners.
“Everyone says Lily’s burgers and fries are really yummy! So I want to sell a lot of them and pay for my parents’ retirement!”
“Mhmm, mhmm,” the mayor nodded along.
The talk of food was making him hungry!
“And your cart isn’t open today?” he asked.
He wanted to try a burger… and french fries… and lemonade would really hit the spot, too…
“Yeah,” Lily said, “the mine is closed, so there’s nobody to buy anything today. But if we opened a restaurant in the city square, maybe we could be open on Sundays, too…”
Lily continued explaining her vision for the restaurant, how people could stop and get a quick, yummy meal at any time, and eat in the city square.
But, soon enough, they arrived at the country club.
There, the general manager confirmed the mayor’s tee time.
“Oh, Jim, I need to amend my reservation,” the mayor said, gesturing at Lily who could barely see over the desk. “I’m doing a round of business golf with Miss Lily, here.”
Jim was a tall, skinny man with tan skin. He looked down at Lily, then raised an eyebrow at the mayor.
“Yeah!” Lily said, standing as tall as she could. “It’s my first game of golf!”
Jim sighed. “And you want to call it business golf, George?”
“Oh, but it is! Miss Lily here is opening a restaurant in the city square.”
Jim’s eyebrows both shot up.
Jim loved trying new food!
He even traveled around the country on his vacations, trying new foods and keeping a food journal!
He was a foodie!
He gave Lily a big smile. “Welcome to the country club, Miss Lily. I hope you’ll consider joining. Please, enjoy your first round of golf.”
Networking!
One of the best parts of business golf is networking!
As the general manager, Jim knew all the movers and shakers in town!
And now he know the proprietor of Three Creeks Village’s first restaurant!
He couldn’t wait to try it out…
So he gave Lily the set of children’s clubs, and sent her on her way with the mayor.
The bag of clubs was a little heavy, but…
Lily was strong!
She had done chores every day for a month!
She could handle it!
They got to the first tee, and the mayor explained the game.
Sure, he hadn’t been planning on playing business golf today, originally, but he was a professional!
Now that he was playing business golf, he was going to take it seriously.
Well, as seriously as he needed to.
Giving your golf partner tips is part of how business golf works.
“The point of the game is to get this little white ball into the cup way over there, where the flag is. But you can only hit it with the clubs, and you win by hitting it in with as few strokes as possible.”
Lily pulled out a couple clubs and wiggled them around in the air.
The end was heavy, and it wobbled around!
“This is a driver, which you start with, and then you uses these irons to get closer to the green, and then on the green you use this putter.”
There was a bunch of different clubs, for different purposes!
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Lily squinted her eyes at them all.
“Hmmmm…” she hummed.
“Here, watch this drive,” the mayor said, and he put the ball on the tee, and got into position. Lily watched closely, but from a safe distance!
The mayor lined up his shot, pulled the club back, and swung!
Thwock!
The club hit the ball on the tee and sent it flying in a beautiful arc, landing near the edge of the green!
“Wow!” Lily cried. “The ball went so far!”
She clapped her hands!
The mayor…
Got smug!
“Heheh, I’ve been playing golf for a long time. I’ve gotten pretty good…”
Indeed, when he first started, he often missed hitting the ball with the club entirely!
It had taken years to get rid of his slice, and learn to hit the ball straight!
Even now he was still only an intermediate player, who still sometimes struggled with bunkers and tricky shots, but now he mostly always hit his drives right!
This was what his wife and his employees didn’t understand. To get good at golf, you have to play a lot of golf!
And if you weren’t good at golf, it was harder to do business golf!
If you looked at it a certain way…
He was doing a really good thing!
He was teaching young Miss Lily golf, so that she’d do better in business!
It was charity!
Of course, he benefited too, but that was the nature of business…
Up in heaven, the mayor’s Piety Points…
Rose!
They went up a bit!
The Gods of Business and Golf were totally on board with that kind of thinking!
“Go ahead and do a couple practice swings,” the mayor told Lily. “If you mess up a drive, you can call that a mulligan, and get a free do-over, so don’t worry too much about your score. It’s your first game, after all. We’ll go pick up the balls from your practice drives after you get a good one.”
He figured that if Lily managed to hit the ball straight, he would call that good, and they could play from there.
Lily took a deep breath and nodded.
She got serious!
She put her ball on the tee, and then did some practice swings.
Swoosh!
Swoosh!
Swoosh!
The mayor watched the girl take a few practice swings, but her form kept shifting. She moved her feet around, and everything was different each time. But…
He shrugged!
This was just a little girl! On her first time playing golf!
It wasn’t a big deal.
But Lily…
Swoosh!
Lily was learning!
Her hips were just a little too high!
Her feet were a little too close together!
She wanted the head of the club to go straight at the bottom of the swing!
She lined herself up at the tee, and pulled her little club back.
And…
Thwock!
She hit the golf ball, and it flew straight!
Every part of her body moved in perfect synchrony, converting every bit of her movement into the swing of the club with no wasted energy!
The mayor’s jaw dropped!
The ghosts’ jaws dropped!
Lily had been getting some unearned rep as a business prodigy, thanks to the help from the ghosts the God of Death had sent to haunt her.
But she was an honest prodigy at golf!
She was blessed by the God of Golf himself!
Her very first drive flew through the air, down the fairway, and landed…
Just a few yards behind the mayor’s ball!
“N-nice drive, Miss Lily!” the mayor said. “Didn’t you say this was your first game?”
“Yeah!” Lily nodded. She quickly folded her hands. “Thanks, Mr. God of Golf!”
And on that day, the mayor started taking his prayers more seriously!
As they walked together, they talked more about Lily’s business’ cashflow, and then the mayor took his time lining up his next shot.
While he was deciding between his nine-iron and his pitching wedge, Lily’s ghosts were explaining investment and franchising to her.
“Investing is when you buy part of a business, and then you get a share of the profits even if you’re not doing any of the work,” Mac said.
“And franchising is when you sell the right to operate a copy of your business, in exchange for a fee and a small share of the profits, and these are called royalties,” Rich said.
“Royalties?” Lily whispered, not wanting to break the mayor’s concentration as he lined up his shot.
“Yeah, it’s kinda like you’re the queen of the restaurant chain, and all the managers have to pay you taxes,” Ray said. “Selling franchises is the easiest way to make money fast, since the managers buying the franchise will invest their own time and money to set up the copy of your restaurant.”
“Why would someone do that instead of opening up their own restaurant?” Lily asked.
“Access to your customers,” Ray said. “Customers like to get familiar things, so a Lilyburger and someone else’s burger are two different things.”
“But it’s a little too early for franchising,” said Rich.
“Yeah, you have the miners as your customers right now, but nobody else knows about Lilyburgers,” said Mac.
“So what you want from the mayor is an investment. He’ll pay you cash, which you need right now, and then you’ll give him a part ownership of the restaurant at the city square. Then, he can collect a portion of your profits from then on,” said Ray.
“Without doing any work?” Lily said.
Was that fair?
“Well, the alternative is taking a loan, and paying the loan fee,” said Mac.
“Besides, he may not be working at the restaurant, but he’ll probably work for the restaurant,” said Ray.
Lily tilted her head.
Ray continued, “The mayor probably has connections, and he can spread word about the restaurant to other people, which will bring in more customers. And, he’s the mayor. He’ll keep the government off your back while your business is growing, which is incredibly valuable.”
Thwock!
The mayor hit the ball and it popped up high into the air, landing on the green!
“Good hit, Mr. Mayor!” Lily said.
“It’s called a ‘chip,’ but thank you, Miss Lily. I used my pitching wedge, but since you’re a little further back, you might want to use your nine-iron.”
The mayor gave good advice!
He was really interested to see what Lily would do next!
Lily decided to take his advice.
Even with her godly golf technique, she was still just a little girl.
She couldn’t put as much muscle into her swing as the mayor, who was a grown adult man.
She lined up her shot, and realized…
The ball was on the ground now!
She would have to swing her club even more carefully this time!
If she was too low, she’d hit the ground and mess up her shot!
If she was too high, she might miss the ball!
She took a few practice swings, making sure she just barely didn’t hit the ground.
She had to slow down her swings, too, to make sure she had good control.
Then, she was ready.
She stepped up to the ball.
The little white golf ball, aaall the way down on the ground!
She bent her knees slightly, got her hips into position, and gripped the club.
She pulled back, and…!
Thwock!
A solid hit!
But…
The ball popped up high into the air, and landed just outside the edge of the green.
It hadn’t gone far enough!
“Hmmm…” Lily muttered. “Maybe I should have used the eight…”
“Good contact!” the mayor praised. “You hit the ball right, now you’re almost on the green!”
They had both made it onto the green in two strokes, although Lily was in the rough on the edge of the green. The hole was par 3, meaning that a player was expected to finish the hole in three strokes.
They were both going to be putting for par!
