THE FUTURE OF GOLF

There is much truth to the saying, “If it’s not, broke don’t fix it.” Every year, I go to the PGA Show, and there is talk of how to fix golf. This year, I heard more about bifurcating the rules, a topic that has been brewing for a couple of years. There was also the new sport of Hack Golf played with non-conforming clubs to a 15-inch hole. So, I had to ask myself, “Is there anything broken regarding golf?” The answer I came up with is that there are too many people trying to fix something that does not need fixing. Golf has survived for going on 600 years. There have been ups and downs in the cycle, just as there are ups and downs in all businesses. The basic game is fine and it appeals to a certain percentage of the population. Not everyone gets or likes golf, but those who do will play until they can’t anymore. Where golf got off-track was unrealistic predictions about growth that was supposed to occur over the past 20 years. Remember when it was forecast that there would be 60 million golfers by now? That led to expansion on the anticipation of all these new golfers. There was a period when a new golf course was opening about every week. Many of these were poorly designed, with huge maintenance costs and overblown greens fees. To make matters worse, in an age where people began wanting things easier and faster, golf was doing the opposite – longer rounds and more difficult layouts. So, when the anticipated growth did not happen, the industry panicked and began coming up with all kinds of grow-the-game initiatives. Maybe it would be better to just step back a bit. Leave the game as it has always been, and let people who get it, get it; and those that don’t, so be it. As a great man once, said not all seeds fall in fertile ground.