I think its far more popular, but with the wrong crowd. I feel like it started with tiger, and then younger guys more recently (ie anthony kim, rickie fowler) brought in the douchey crowd, so now you go to the course and you get stuck behind 3 foursomes of guys with popped collars who have no respect for the etiquette of golf. they sit out there more worried about who slammed the most beers and updating their social networking from their phones than actually playing golf and make the game less enjoyable for the rest of us. That could just be the case in my area, but i know I will only go out in the early am or if the weather isnt favorable