It has been almost seven years since Callaway Golf Senior VP/Marketing HARRY ARNETT and his wife KIM relocated to Carlsbad, Calif., from the southeast, but he still takes time every day to appreciate the West Coast's weather and lifestyle. With a house located just a mile from the ocean there are plenty of evening walks on the beach, and having been part of the golf industry for several years, there are many afternoons spent on the fairways. Arnett will get another chance to improve upon his six handicap this weekend, as he and his Callaway coworkers take on other industry execs in a friendly competition out on the links.
CALIFORNIA DREAMIN': On Fridays I normally get home around 5:30pm, and lately what we've been doing on Fridays is going and watching the sunset. We live about a mile from the ocean. We go watch the sunset and usually take the dogs down there, walk with the kids and try to forget about work for at least an hour or two. We have two Bernese Mountain dogs -- Sully is 11 and Doug is one. They're not your typical California dogs. Neither of them likes going in the water or anything. But they like the weather because they don't ever get too hot here. But we like to watch the surfers about that time and then usually we'll hang around Carlsbad Village and grab something to eat down there. There's a ton of fish taco and other cool places down there. Being near the ocean and the beach is really fun.
IT AIN'T EASY BEING GREEN: This weekend is the Golf Industry Cup in Irvine, which means I'll be playing tournament golf against a bunch of other people in the golf industry over the course of two days. We'll get to compete against each other in ways that are other than just trying to beat each other's brains out in the marketplace and sales. It's a team event, so each company can put together as many teams as they want. Callaway has five teams. I'm on the worst team, but that's okay. We're the worst, but we're the scrappiest. It's a four-man team and you accumulate points based on how you fared to par. Each round has a different nine-hole format. You end up playing with a bunch of different people from all over the industry, but you're not really competing against them necessarily, you're trying to accumulate as many points as you can.
BEST IN THE BUSINESS: I think in all there's more than 20 different companies represented in this thing. You've got Titleist, Ping, TaylorMade, Cleveland -- all the golf manufacturers as well as the sort of component brands that support the equipment industry like grip companies, shaft companies. It's pretty fun. We do it every year. It’s big bragging rights for whoever wins it. Callaway hasn't won it in a few years. Last year we came within a few points of winning, within a few shots of winning. Saturday after golf there's a big cocktail party and dinner and so it's just a chance to kind of put the gloves down from the normal competitiveness that we have against each other and then wake up and finish the tournament the next day. Tee time Sunday is to be determined depending on how we finish on Saturday, so hopefully I'll have a late tee time, which means that I'll be in contention. But I'm counting on an early tee time. I'm sure I’ll be first off.
GIRL POWER: After the first day of the tournament I'll get home for a 5:00pm tipoff to see my 7-year-old daughter CJ play basketball. It's her second year playing but a brand new team so that will be fun. My 5-year-old daughter KERRIS is actually on the same basketball team. It will be her debut. Kerris does whatever CJ does. CJ wanted to play basketball because I think she liked the outfits frankly. And one of our neighbors played basketball, he's 12, so she liked watching him shoot and just announced one day that she wanted to play basketball which was totally out of left field. So she's in a local Boys & Girls Club basketball league. CJ is sort of a coach's dream because she's the only seven year old that doesn't like to shoot, she likes to pass and play defense.
ANY WAY YOU SLICE IT: Usually Saturday night's pizza night, so we're going to continue with that tradition and head on over and get some slices of pizza and hopefully we'll be talking about a big basketball "W" and a good day on the golf course for Daddy. We are a family of routine and always go to Flippin' Pizza in Carlsbad Village. It's New York-style. There's no such thing really as California pizza -- even though there's a California Pizza Kitchen -- so you either get New York or Chicago-style here.
WORKING FOR THE WEEKEND: Sunday night, usually a couple hours after the kids are in bed, I kind of have the computer out and really get back into the mode of transitioning out of the weekend and into the next week. I usually like to plan out what the whole week looks like, and I sort of also look out over the next month and particularly this time of year when we have a whole bunch of product launches coming out in the next few days. Then I like to make sure that I have a list of all the Monday morning tasks that I want to get accomplished, like e-mails for the week, and plans for my staff meeting on Monday. I don't stay up late, I just usually am the most productive when it's the quietest, so that means usually from 8:00-10:00 at night and for sure from like 6:00-8:00 in the morning. But I don't like to stay up late. If I'm up past 10:00pm, something weird is happening.
