You may have already won a trip! - golfing trip for golfer and friends - Brief Article

My friend Tony gave a golf trip to his son last Christmas. And Tony's son gave a golf trip to his uncle. And the uncle gave a golf trip to Tony. As these gifts were revealed, one by one, over the course of Christmas morning, Tony's mother's astonishment grew. "I can't believe you all gave each other a trip to the same place! And on the same weekend!"

A gambit like that would never have worked with my wife, because she knows (and is appalled) that my brother and I have long agreed to simplify our lives by never giving each other anything for any reason. But Tony's success got me to thinking, and I'm pretty sure I've come up with a good alternative.

Here's what I've done. I've started a company called the International Golf Sweepstakes Foundation Inc., of which I am the sole employee. Let's say that you and three buddies want to take a 10-day golf trip to Ireland, but you know that your wives would never in a million years let you go. You contact me by e-mail, and I send you an entry form for a contest in which the grand prize happens to be an all-expenses-paid 10-day golf trip to Ireland for four. You fill out the form and ask your wife to sign her name on the line marked "witness."

"What's this?" she asks. "Oh, just some dumb animal-rights thing they made us contribute to at work." Your wife happily signs, you send the form back to me with a check for $500 (my fee), and you never again mention the contest to your wife. Three or four months later, a fat, official-looking FedEx package arrives at your house. You open it in front of your wife, appear puzzled for a moment, then begin hooting. "Remember that dumb contest?" you shout. "I actually won!"

Nonplaying wives view all golf trips as wasteful extravagances, but they can't help thinking of contest winnings as money in the bank. To fail to cash in on a prize already won would be like throwing jewelry out in the trash, so of course you'll get to go--especially if you promptly offer your wife some sort of compensating goodie, like a new kitchen. You'll have to make all your travel arrangements yourself--and conceal your credit card charges as you do--because that's not part of what my foundation does, at least for the time being. All I do is get you out the door.

The rest is up to you.

COPYRIGHT 2001 New York Times Company Magazine Group, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group