School of Business > UPDATE > Fall 2002 > Article

Up To Par
CEO's Golf Skills Win National Attention

Curt Culver

It has to rank among the ultimate sports fantasies. Earlier this year, Curt Culver, BBA '74, MS '75, CEO of MGIC Investment in Milwaukee, made Business Week for being one of the best golf players among public company CEOs. In fact, Culver, with a 2.9 handicap, was ranked second only to Scott McNealy, CEO of Sun Microsystems, who has the unearthly handicap of .3.

It all started with Golf Digest magazine, which each year runs a list of Fortune 500 company CEOs against an internet site that lists handicaps of all golfers. The story was picked up by USA Today and, finally, made the pages of Business Week.

According to Culver, the feedback he's received on the stories has been terrific. "I have heard from friends all over the country. I have been receiving golf balls, clubs, books and other goodies from manufacturers. The only grief I received is from some of my golf betting buddies. They want more strokes."

Culver started golfing young. "My parents owned the A&W in Sauk City (Wisconsin) so when I wasn't working there or playing baseball, I was on the golf course. My parents were generally working at the restaurant and the golf course was kind of a babysitter." He went on to play at Sauk Prairie High School on a team that went to state three of his four years. "I then went to UW-Madison and played my freshman year but didn't go out thereafter for a variety of reasons," Culver recalled. "I was working at our restaurant on weekends so I had little time to practice, the Vietnam protests were raging on campus and golf just didn't seem right at the time. In retrospect, I wish I would have played my last three years."

Culver has found golf to be a tremendous asset to his career. "When I graduated from Madison, I stayed in Madison and worked at Verex, a national mortgage insurance company. Our CEO, Bruce Thomas, was an avid golfer at Maple Bluff and he was aware I was a good player from various state tourneys and the Madison city tournament. Soon after I started, he would invite me to play. He wanted to beat me badly. (He never did.) After that, I became an important part of customer entertainment with Bruce. So I quickly got to know the CEO right out of college because of my golf game (although I could never call him Bruce, it had to be Mr. Thomas). Obviously this was helpful to my career. The mortgage business, like most businesses, is full of golfers, so it has helped me get to know customers at a much more in-depth level. Playing well helps even further."

Culver said golf has been an asset in other ways as well. "Golf is the most humbling game I know, regardless of the level you play. This game will embarrass you, regardless of your skill level. It has kept me humble.

Culver has found that "the honor of the game" teaches important lessons in integrity and the discipline required to play at a high level sets personality traits important for business success.

"I would encourage all students to play,"Culver said. "It truly is a game of a lifetime."