{"id":2228,"date":"2007-11-08T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2007-11-08T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesandtrap.com\/columns\/thrash_talk\/are_we_headed_for_extinction"},"modified":"2007-11-08T11:54:02","modified_gmt":"2007-11-08T15:54:02","slug":"are_we_headed_for_extinction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesandtrap.com\/b\/thrash_talk\/are_we_headed_for_extinction","title":{"rendered":"Are We Headed for Extinction?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ThrashPeople like to make fun of weathermen, but when you think about it, it’s pretty difficult to predict the future of just about anything. Financial and real estate markets, baseball playoffs, college football games, elections, inflation, you name it – some expert is always astounding us with his or her stupidity when they try to predict the future. I suppose it’s for this very reason that I’m not too worried about the future of golf. Or maybe I am.
\n
\nA couple of articles caught my eye this week. The first was this article by a magazine called chicagoland golf. You can read it yourself<\/a> (it’s very interesting), but the overall message is simple: growth in golf is stagnant in the U.S. Golf courses are closing, and participation is flat or decreasing. A few years ago, some study was published which stated we would need a new golf course built every day for something like the next ten years to keep up with the demands of a growing game. Now, they’re saying the opposite. Another very good article<\/a> by Golf Channel’s Rich Lerner gives us an inkling of the problems facing private clubs in the U.S.<\/p>\n

I’m not an economist, and I don’t really know a hell of alot about the golf business, to be honest. Take my opinions for what they’re worth, and take a swipe at them by all means. But here are some of the things I’ve pondered concerning golf’s future:<\/p>\n

One: Who Cares?<\/strong>
\nI’m not saying I agree with this sentiment, but is it really so bad that golf isn’t growing? Do we really need another million people clogging up already overcrowded courses? Much has been made of trying to make golf affordable and to encourage participation by city youth, etc., but are we fooling ourselves in these efforts? Golf is expensive to play and always will be. Nobody takes up the game expecting a bargain, and maybe we are at the practical limit of participation in the U.S.<\/p>\n

I happen to think we do need to continue to grow the sport, but before we start into discussions about how to change golf to make it more appealing, etc., we need to decide if there really is a problem to begin with. I’m smart enough to know that, despite my leanings otherwise, maybe there really isn’t a problem at all.<\/p>\n

Two: The Wrong People are in Charge<\/strong>
\nGolf course development in the U.S. today is, I think anyway, largely driven by real estate developers and other large, commercial entities who use golf’s appeal to sell something else, like houses, or a hotel\/resort, or to create revenue growth for a large, publicly owned corporation that operates golf courses. The roots of golf everywhere else in the world, and in the U.S. too a century ago, are quite different. Golf clubs were started by people who play and love the game, people whose sole mission was creating nice places to play and socialize, not sell spec houses. I happen to believe that if you are using golf to accomplish an ulterior motive, then golf becomes a whore and suffers the inevitable consequences. Private and\/or semi-private golf courses, owned and operated by true blue golfers, is an imperative for the continued health of the sport.<\/p>\n

Three: Wither the Private Club?<\/strong>
\nHaving made the point above, why is club golf dying? Well, ultra-high level club golf isn’t, as the very rich are building new courses and doing quite well. I don’t think Baltusrol, Pine Valley, and Augusta are suffering, either. I think it’s the second- and third-tier clubs, like Lerner’s Berkleigh, that are suffering. The reasons given for this are that men today have insufficient time to devote to golf, have competing leisure options, don’t have the money to do it anyway, and are disinterested or outright turned off by the dusty, dated social scene and culture at many private clubs. All of these are probably true to an extent, so can’t we fix them?<\/p>\n

Golf needs to be flexible. The seven- to eight-hour ritual that defines today’s weekend golfer can<\/em> be changed, if we want it to. We need a bite-size version of the game, that a man can complete in an hour or so, and not some silly par three thing or mini-golf. Maybe it’s a course with a bunch of three-hole loops. Relaxed design and maintenance standards to make golf a bit easier and cheaper wouldn’t hurt, either. In other parts of the world, private club golf, with all of its advantages, is accessible to people of all income ranges. I think we would be better off if that were the situation in the U.S. as well.<\/p>\n

Clubs have to adapt and become more in tune with modern families, which means catering to young children and mothers. I won’t go into the details, but a place with a musty-smelling dining room and naked 70-year-old men walking around the locker room is not going to entice many modern families to take up golf.<\/p>\n

I read an interview with Herb Kelleher of Southwest Airlines, in which he summarized the genius of his company as follows: he realized early on that his competition was not United Airlines or TWA or any other airline. His competition was Greyhound. Kelleher had the ability to conceive of air travel in a different way. Today, everyone is trying to keep up with him.<\/p>\n

If we want golf to succeed today, maybe we have to think like Kelleher. We have to realize that it’s a competition, and our opponent is not golf as defined in 1950. It’s video games, youth soccer, the movies, wine tasting, skateboarding, paintball, and all of the remaining diversions available to folks today. The sorts of changes I think are important to compete in this sphere are probably abhorent to many golfers, who tend to be quite conservative and traditional in their thinking.<\/p>\n

Maybe we don’t need<\/em> to grow to survive, but if we don’t try to grow, we are in danger of extinction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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