Lorin Anderson is founder and president of Proponent Group, which provides full-time golf coaches support to help them grow business and opportunities. Anderson reveals how he got into the golf industry and why he was fully invested in the U.S. Senior Women’s Open. 

The First Call: Please give us a short overview of your company.
Lorin Anderson: Proponent Group [located in Heathrow, Fla.] assists full-time golf coaches with the many business issues that they deal with on a regular basis. Everything from marketing to teaching building design to contract negotiations to detailed compensation data. Since 2007 we've provided business supports to more than 1,200 coaches in more than 20 countries.

TFC: What are key elements to leadership or to being a good leader?
LA: Over the years I've come to believe that great leadership is getting yourself and your team to stick with something long enough to become highly competent. I see too much "shiny ball" syndrome in business where managers and businesses can't stay focused long enough to make serious headway before moving on to something else. Great managers never get completely stuck in the weeds, they are able to pull back and keep the bigger opportunities clearly in focus.

TFC: What's the secret to your success?
LA: People in the industry and many of our Proponent Group clients tell me they have a lot of trust in me personally and my team as a whole because I've always emphasized follow through. If we say we're going to do something for someone then we get it done just about 100 percent of the time.

TFC: Who is your role model?
LA: I've been blessed with a lot of role models in my life. I've worked for legendary magazine editors including Jerry Tarde and George Peper and I've been around a lot of high level business people both in and out of golf and I try to learn from all of them whenever the opportunity presents itself. But there is one person who I try to emulate whenever possible. His name was Dr. Charles Beaird and he was the owner of the newspaper in Shreveport, La., when I was going to Centenary College there. To cut to the main point, he took an interest in a college kid who was running the school paper and who had asked him for some advice. When I graduated, he opened a door for me to get into golf media that 33 years later is still probably the most powerful thing anyone has ever done for me. I try to pay his kindness forward whenever possible. In one act of kindness he changed my life forever. 

TFC: What’s the last book you read?
LA: “Small Giants” by Bo Burlingame. Great look at how some small businesses can still have outsized influence on their industries and can still be great without being big.

TFC: When I’m not at work, you can find me …
LA: Well, recently you would have found me caddying for my wife at the U.S. Senior Women's Open at Brooklawn Country Club in Fairfield, Conn. She made the cut which meant I had to carry the bag for seven straight days. Not sure my legs were planning on that at the beginning of the week, but we had a blast and she played great. 

The First Call asked contributors Bradley Klein and Joe Passov, who know a few things about golf course architecture, for their must-read recommendations on the topic.