Why Golf Is Hurting & Is Growing the Game a Good Thing?

First of all, is golf really hurting and if it is, relative to what? Golf's greatest financial boom corresponded with two certified black swan events: The advent of the internet and the ascension of Tiger Woods. Both Woods and the web are still around, both are still relevant, but things have changed.

More than anything I question the idea that golf can or should grow, at least like an economy or a population can grow. There are simply too many forms of recreation for any existing form to grow very much in terms of the percentage of the population. So, the percentage of people who play golf won't grow (or decline) much and neither will the percentages for tennis or bowling. Some people will play certain games and some won't.

 Of course, golf has always been hurt by slow play and cost. There's simply no way to make the game cheap. Like skiing, golf is a massively inefficient use of space for a relatively small number of participants. Golf's powers-that-be simply don't see slow play as an issue or they would have done something about it once they saw the first weekend hacker plumb-bob a 4 footer for triple bogey. Boo-hoo & ho-hum...

 What interests me is the wave of new golf services vying for the decreasing number of dollars the average golfer has in the bank. I've had new golfers come to me and ask if they need to be fitted (dollars), if they need a golf-specific trainer (dollars) and if they need a new TaylorMade R11s driver now that their R11 is almost a year old.

We shouldn't be surprised by this. As golf has grown its marketing efforts have become more sophisticated. Tiger Woods proved that golfers are athletes so if I'm a golfer I need a trainer and so on until the new golfer goes back to his other hobbies.

No one can blame the golf club fitters and trainers for being good at selling their wares. But, it's a fact that every dollar someone spends on products and services that are peripheral to golf is one fewer dollar that's available for greens fees.