Usage of third person plural as a courtesy form

Question

I'm confused by something that appears in Pimsleur's Italian course. At this point (6 minutes into lesson 25 of level 3), we're in the role of an American man speaking with the wife of his colleague. He tells her he likes to play golf in his spare time. And then in the audio that follows it seems to me they use 'possono' when 'potete' should be used. Am I missing something?
Here's the audio, and here's my transcription:

English Narrator: 
"She says,'Maybe you and my husband can play golf together soon'" 
Italian speaker: 
"Forse Lei e mio marito possono giocare a golf insieme presto"

egreg · Accepted Answer

The common respect form is “lei” for a single person and the verb in the third person singular. It used to be “loro” for more people and the verb in the third person plural, but in current Italian it's only used in very formal writing or when the speaker wants to emphasize their condition of inferiority.
Something like “Che cosa desiderano?” can be heard from a waiter in a high price restaurant.
The common form for more people is nowadays “voi”. In the case of the sentence you show, the lady wants to use the (obsolete) respect form so the plural has to be in the third person, even if she doesn't use “lei” with her husband. However “lei” is more than sufficient to show respect.
Forse lei e mio marito potete giocare assieme a golf, uno di questi giorni
I'd not translate soon with presto in this case, but it's a detail.
Working around the problem: Forse (lei) può giocare a golf con mio marito uno di questi giorni, is even less clumsy. In this case “lei” would not normally be used, because Italian mostly drops personal pronoun subjects when the verb is clear about who/what the subject is.

Usage of third person plural as a courtesy form

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