Golf Twenty-Ten and My Top Five

2009 is in the books. It’s time to turn the page on the year and decade and look onto the golf bright side for 2010. Golf this year will be different. It may be a year without a Tiger, and no one knows what effect that will have. Only time will tell. Let’s just hope, whatever the impact, it turns out positive for the game.

Now is as good a time as any to reflect on what 2010 and the next decade might bring to the game of golf.  Will we all play more rounds, or fewer? Will new golfers come to the fore by the thousands or will the participation numbers remain stagnant or decline?

First, a quick look back at the last decade from my perspective.

I have been in the golf business for all of the last decade and every year I have been told, reminded, reminded and told again, that golf was continuing to grow by leaps and bounds because “more juniors were taking up the game”, “ more women were taking up the game”, “more ethnics were taking up the game”, etc, etc, etc.  Expensive research studies kept providing rock solid detail about golf’s success, the far too many Canadian Golf Associations painted far too rosy pictures of the game, manufacturers kept rolling out far too many new products with unrelenting frequency that guaranteed the ball would fly farther, fly straighter and make every putt fall from wherever on the green. The techie golfers purchased all the gadgets that would make rounds faster. The web was going to make tee time bookings easier. Weather channels would give us better, and more up to date forecast information. Apparel manufacturers would keep us drier and warmer and on and on and on.

Well, here we are at the start of another decade. Perhaps, I dress a little better although I can’t say that I am any drier because when it rains I don’t play. I don’t hit the ball any longer or that much straighter and I’ve tried most of the new clubs and balls.  Rounds aren’t much quicker, even though all three of my regular playing partners are GPS geeks  (it’s the guys in front of us that are usually the problem).  I still pick up the phone to call the golf course and book a tee time. Takes two minutes and very seldom am I unable to get the date and time which I want (tee times are quite easy to get at most courses on most days) and that’s not a good sign.  So who really needs any  last minute golf booking services?

Unfortunately, I don’t see any more juniors on the courses today than I did ten years ago and I don’t see a significant number of new lady golfers either. I do see a few more ethnics playing, and that’s a good thing, but the ‘baby boomers’ continue to make up the largest percentage of golfers playing the game (those are the guys 55 60 and older, most retired and with enough pension money to play 40 rounds a year). And this is not a sustainable demographic.  Oh yes, the weather — if I really want to know what the weather is like, I look out the window. If the sun’s out I play. If it’s raining, I don’t. Isn’t that what most golfers do today?

Publisher's Prognostications

Enough about the past. Let’s look at the next ten years. Will the next decade be any different? Over the holiday period I have  had time to reflect and think about the future of golf and here’s a little of what I predict and more about about ‘what I think’.

1. Golf Course Architects will be looking for work. No one will be building new courses, at least in the short term, and existing golf courses will run out of renovation work to keep architects busy. Smart designers might want to think outside the box and maybe design new concepts.  Here’s one idea — build a course that has 18 holes, three sets of six holes, with each set returning to the club-house, thus giving golfers options of a six hole game, a twelve hole game or a full eighteen. A course like this might address the  “I don’t have enough time” issue that we constantly hear. And it would give the architects some creative work.
2. ‘Golf in Schools’ programs and Future Links programs will be re-evaluated and fade. Think about it.  Kids don’t learn to play hockey in school gymnasiums, they learn on ice (or any piece of flat unoccupied asphalt). Golf course owners and club professionals need to get kids onto golf courses, with real golf clubs, real golf balls, simple rules and without a 75 year old marshal hanging around.  Kids will actually have fun, want to play more and the game will actually grow. I would also suggest that we get rid of the ‘Take a kid to the course week’ and replace it with ‘Take a kid to the course any time’. Let every kid under the age of 12 play free all the time, with a paying adult. If kids between the ages of 6 and 12 play regularly with Dad or Mom, many will become lifetime players! I guarantee it.
3. Owners and golf professionals will finally realize that they need to set aside blocks of time each week for ‘ladies only’. The ‘intimidation factor’ will disappear for all those women who want to play but are afraid of comments from the macho males in the group behind waiting impatiently for them to get out of the way so they might ‘top‘ another 40 yards.  Result — more ladies getting more comfortable with the their game and actually playing more. More golfers who will continue with the game rather than getting all excited, buying some new clubs  and an outfit (or three), starting and then, well, dropping by the wayside.
4. The ‘latest and greatest’ driver, wedge, iron, putter will be less of the story. We will all learn to just play with what’s in our golf bag and maybe take a few lessons to ‘tweak’ our game. You can’t make driver heads any bigger or any squarer and there are no more putter head ‘shapes’ available. We don’t really need any more gimmicks or novelties. Manufacturers surely must be learning that reinventing the wheel year after year is not bringing any more players to the game. It’s just filling basements and garages. And CPGA Professionals, wake up and start selling your ability to teach! There is a huge opportunity out there. People want to play this game. They just don’t really know how and where to get started.
5. Nike will begin looking for another golfer to hang their branding hat on as the Tiger era begins to lose its lustre. Has the decade of the Tiger increased rounds of golf? I don’t think so. He has certainly helped the PGA Tour and all of its revenue streams, but that’s about all. And now, maybe Nike, (like other companies world-wide) will begin to look at different golf marketing strategies, rather than pinning all their hopes on endorsements of touring pros. Professional athletes today are huge gambles and there are better means to ‘talk’ to the customer. Tiger will make a comeback at a time convenient to him, he will continue to chase records, and he will continue to inspire all of us with shots once thought not possible. And sure we will all view him in a different light, but that may not be all bad — remember, not one of us is perfect.

Have fun in 2010 and introduce a friend to the game.