What Grows the Game?

[rollin]

Personally, I don't think "growing" the game of golf is an issue. There have been ebbs and flows to number of golfers playing, courses built, etc., corresponding to the rise and fall of it's popular stars (Snead, Hogan, Palmer, Jack, Tiger ...) and the economy.
- Cost has ALWAYS been a factor in golf participation and probably always will be.
- It's not a game for everyone as it requires a substantial commitment of time, money and effort so why try to market or promote it as such?
- dumbing down golf does nothing to help the game

We need golfing parents and grandparents to promote the game from within. If you have kids or grand kids who show an interest, take the time to take them to putt, chip, hit the range, ride in the cart while you play, caddie for you or whatever it is that would be FUN for them and help fan that spark.
We also need golf courses to step up and offer major discounts for kids - kids play free with an adult days/times, super discounts for range passes, kids prices for lessons, better membership discounts for family play, etc. Have cheap kids summer golfing programs that focus on fun, not creating high school/college/tour players. Instead of sucking every possible dollar out of the golfing community to maximize their profits, courses need to invest in their future players.

This obviously goes against all the hubbub we see about the state of golf ... it's just the way I see it.

I tend to agree. Not every household needs to have a golfer. Not every household ever had one and never will. I believe the game is much more popular now vs what it was before the Tiger influx took hold. In that sense it actually has grown. I'm also (as you have implied) not really a fan of making different versions of golf or drastically changing things just to get more people golfing. I can understand the on going debate about bifurcation of rules but even that is more about us already playing than it ever will be about getting others to play. No one (just like we have right now) has to play by any rules they don't want to anyway. Most people don't even run a cap let alone play any official competitive golf anyway nor do most play by all the rules. So while changing some things might (or might not) be good for us already playing, it imo has no impact on getting new players to join the sport.

 

[5150]

From my perspective I think it's helpful to make the game more accessible to beginners - not from a cost perspective but from a skill perspective. Start small, show them putting, chipping, pitching, etc. Work up to the full swing.

Here's a parallel from my experience with music... been playing guitar since 1990. The first songs I learned were really, really simple and catchy - and accessible. My first lesson included some basic technique, a few chords and an easy song (Social Distortion's "Ball and Chain", I believe). If the instructor had handed me a Van Halen tune to learn by next week I would've gotten frustrated and quit.

 

[rollin]

From my perspective I think it's helpful to make the game more accessible to beginners - not from a cost perspective but from a skill perspective. Start small, show them putting, chipping, pitching, etc. Work up to the full swing.

Here's a parallel from my experience with music... been playing guitar since 1990. The first songs I learned were really, really simple and catchy - and accessible. My first lesson included some basic technique, a few chords and an easy song (Social Distortion's "Ball and Chain", I believe). If the instructor had handed me a Van Halen tune to learn by next week I would've gotten frustrated and quit.

I would ask, how does showing a newbie chipping and putting make the game any more accessible? For one thing, most newbies (right, wrong, or indifferent) find the joy of hitting full clubs much more attracting when first starting out. The first thoughts one has about dabbling in golf to any degree even if just to experiment or have some fun regardless of the seriousness of their true intent is most usually in the form of hitting full clubs at a range. And besides that, if one wants to go out to a course they do need to be able to hit the ball a considerable yardage and at least barely well enough to make their way towards the greens. Even in your parallel music example you played cords to the basic tune of a song. That is similar to the basic need to get down towards the green even barely respectable enough.

Most will not find much fun in going out and being totally unable to make their way to a green by chopping,flopping,slicing, and dicing 20 times along thier way. That is not fun for anyone. Most newbies do not want to learn from the pin and out but they just want to go and play. Even if this is an incorrect manor we must understand this topic is about growing the game. In order to grow you want to make it as simple as possible from the start. Not what may be better in the long run, but what is better to get a start. But making it simple means you don't want it to be a long and drawn out process to get started. People just are not going to want to endure some process to eventually get better. They want to just get out there sooner than later and get introduced and have fun hitting balls on the course. Then , when/if they feel they want to continue have to then make decisions about which routes they want to take. So making golf more accessible is achieved far more imo by having newbies experience the fun of hitting balls and then being able to get out and experience a course vs having them chip and putt and then only working up towards hitting balls. The later being a much greater process to endure and more a turn off than fun but the former gets them tasting it all sooner and hooks them in faster. After that imo is when they then need to understand whats involved assuming they want to stay with it. A first glance "Fun" vs a work process just to get startde? is the difference between getting hooked and not wanting to bother. Unless in the rare case one wanted to come into the sport and new they were to be more serious from the get go and understood the process involved. But that is not going to be most people and when talking "growing the game" the idea would be to get anyone you can to try it.

 

[mesaman777]

The First Tee program. Parents getting their children outdoors and away from the Xbox. No better place in this game to get started in golf, work on social skills and make lasting friendships. Wish TFT was around when I started playing.

 

[T2GRN18]

Does social Media help grow the game? I'd be curious to see what impact it has.

 

[UVaWahoo]

Does social Media help grow the game? I'd be curious to see what impact it has.

That is an interesting question, one for which I don't know the answer. While I don't know social media's role in growing the game, I do know that it enhances the game for those of us that have embraced the game. As it relates to our youngsters, I am not convinced that social media impacts the growth of not only golf but most other sports as well. When I was a youngster (many years ago), after school, I would meet my buddies to play pickup baseball or football. If I wanted to talk to my friends, I actually went to meet my friends. Now it seems that youngsters prefer to play video games and text their friends. Now it seems that I just see them holding their tablets and smart phones.

 

[rollin]

Does social Media help grow the game? I'd be curious to see what impact it has.

The "modern" computer age and that of its related of social media is what imo enormously helped trigger and boost the Tiger influx much greater than it ever would have gbeen without it.. But since then, fast news and total coverage is now not new anymore. Now we expect all news fast and also know we can always have it repeated and even beat to death. Its just no big deal anymore for the whole world to be able to watch and keep abreast of everything. But when modern time media was only new and there was also great story (like Tiger) to coincidentally take place, it just worked miracles together. So I think social media can always help grow anything but can do so via simple marketing and advertising and not really through the fact of it being a new thing like it did with tiger. But it certainly can be used as a great tool.

 

[-CRW-]

The First Tee program. Parents getting their children outdoors and away from the Xbox. No better place in this game to get started in golf, work on social skills and make lasting friendships. Wish TFT was around when I started playing.

This 100%. BUT, The First Tee needs to be more proactive in advertising. They advertise on the Golf Channel, but are looking for kids whose family members probably aren't in to golf (otherwise they'd already be aware of the program right?). They also go to schools for less fortunate children (which I'm a fan of), but they should be going to all schools if they really want to see the game grow.

 

[Big SoIL]

I think the old school country club stigma is part of what keeps the game from growing. A lot of courses don't really make any effort to get away from it either whether it hurts them or not. Loosen up, be more inclusive!

I don't really think that pace of play has anything to do with growing the game, it's more of an issue of convenience for us already involved in the game. I think a bigger issues is the tee boxes to keep the game enjoyable for everyone. Courses could help pace and keep it fun by offering a wider variety of tee boxes and yardages, at the same time making the game easier for those starting out. It would also be great if they would quit labeling certain tees as ladies or senior tees, no 20 or 30 something group of men wants to play the ladies even if they'll shoot 120 from the "intermediate men's" tees. Just call them by their yardage or a color please.

The game doesn't have to be expensive. Sets of starter clubs can be had on the cheap if you look around. Courses could also offer dynamic pricing and try to fill some of their less popular time slots and dates. Come in to this century also and embrace technology and social media. Golf shouldn't be a secret, I'm sure in some regions they do a good job with websites and schedules but not in my area and many others I'm sure.

Offer a youth program like First Tee and make it a competitive viable option to take on travel baseball, club soccer, or AAU basketball. There is a great youth movement on the PGA Tour right now and it needs to be taken advantage of, there's a lot of good ambassadors and role models kids can look up to.

All the courses in my area offer 9 hole rates, I guess some courses don't, but I believe this is a must so that people can play more often without blocking out 5 hours of there schedule to get in a round. I don't know how well courses would do with 6 or 12 hole rates because those holes are usually at the back of the course and would be hard to police how many holes people actually play.

 

[Wyzyguy]

Growing the game:

Kids playing with parents to start.
Junior programs with good coaches that make it fun & not a job.
Understanding that you are not going to be good on day 1 & may never be great.
You get out what you put in.
Time. I learned to love the game gradually. Once I broke 90 there was no stopping it.

 

[5150]

What Grows the Game?

I would ask, how does showing a newbie chipping and putting make the game any more accessible? For one thing, most newbies (right, wrong, or indifferent) find the joy of hitting full clubs much more attracting when first starting out. The first thoughts one has about dabbling in golf to any degree even if just to experiment or have some fun regardless of the seriousness of their true intent is most usually in the form of hitting full clubs at a range. And besides that, if one wants to go out to a course they do need to be able to hit the ball a considerable yardage and at least barely well enough to make their way towards the greens. Even in your parallel music example you played cords to the basic tune of a song. That is similar to the basic need to get down towards the green even barely respectable enough.

Most will not find much fun in going out and being totally unable to make their way to a green by chopping,flopping,slicing, and dicing 20 times along thier way. That is not fun for anyone. Most newbies do not want to learn from the pin and out but they just want to go and play. Even if this is an incorrect manor we must understand this topic is about growing the game. In order to grow you want to make it as simple as possible from the start. Not what may be better in the long run, but what is better to get a start. But making it simple means you don't want it to be a long and drawn out process to get started. People just are not going to want to endure some process to eventually get better. They want to just get out there sooner than later and get introduced and have fun hitting balls on the course. Then , when/if they feel they want to continue have to then make decisions about which routes they want to take. So making golf more accessible is achieved far more imo by having newbies experience the fun of hitting balls and then being able to get out and experience a course vs having them chip and putt and then only working up towards hitting balls. The later being a much greater process to endure and more a turn off than fun but the former gets them tasting it all sooner and hooks them in faster. After that imo is when they then need to understand whats involved assuming they want to stay with it. A first glance "Fun" vs a work process just to get startde? is the difference between getting hooked and not wanting to bother. Unless in the rare case one wanted to come into the sport and new they were to be more serious from the get go and understood the process involved. But that is not going to be most people and when talking "growing the game" the idea would be to get anyone you can to try it.

[deleted my post]

I don't want to argue.

Cheers!

 

[ntanygd760]

The "modern" computer age and that of its related of social media is what imo enormously helped trigger and boost the Tiger influx much greater than it ever would have gbeen without it.. But since then, fast news and total coverage is now not new anymore. Now we expect all news fast and also know we can always have it repeated and even beat to death. Its just no big deal anymore for the whole world to be able to watch and keep abreast of everything. But when modern time media was only new and there was also great story (like Tiger) to coincidentally take place, it just worked miracles together. So I think social media can always help grow anything but can do so via simple marketing and advertising and not really through the fact of it being a new thing like it did with tiger. But it certainly can be used as a great tool.

I mean I had the internet when Tiger was winning 4 majors in a row, if you consider dial up internet but there was no such thing as social media really

 

[rollin]

[deleted my post]

I don't want to argue.

Cheers!

Why is it arguing? Conversation and even debate via different opinions is all good imo part of what makes a forum work so long as its all respectable

I mean I had the internet when Tiger was winning 4 majors in a row, if you consider dial up internet but there was no such thing as social media really

Well. whatever we want to technically call it, there is no doubt the modern computer age really exploded through the 90's and into the millennium and was coincidentally happening at the same time the great story of Tiger unfolded. The information highway changed and was now at our fingertips like never before that. Even if not at todays standards was still worlds apart from prior to that time. Just like television coverage was becoming a much more dominant thing at the time a younger Jack was to challenge Arny and that (at the time new information highway via TV) helped to boost the story and helped capture a greater general interest and raise greater awareness of golf at the time causing an influx to the sport. A decade or so earlier and it wouldn't have been quite the same. It wasn't even until Elvis 1972 Hawaii concert was (arguably) the first ever internationally broadcast event and even that was only to certain given areas of the world and wasn't even a complete success broadcasting wise. But to my point of the Arny/Jack story unfolding a decade or so earlier than it did which would have minimized the general interest and influx imo, had the story conversely unfolded a decade later than it did when Tv took even an much greater dominating hold on the world the boom of general interest towards the sport would have climbed even much higher then it did.

Its the sane thing imo with the Tiger influx. The information highway due to the modern computer age of the time was well on its way to becoming what it is today and that whole process enormously helped boost the whole Tiger story and also boost the genral interest in the sport. In the same way a more dominating Tv age helped boom the interest in the 60's along with the Arny, then Arny/jack story, and then emergence of jack this more dominating computer age and (info at our fingertips) of the 90's certainly helped boost the popularity of the game while Tiger at the same time gave it the great story to work with. I am not saying that tiger wouldn't have cause an influx and raised level of interest in the sport. he certainly would have, but just that I don't believe the whole process was not also heavily affected buy the new age of info, media, and communication coincidentally happening at the same time. Lets face it, someone burps now and another person 4 thousand miles and an ocean away knows about it....lol but actually one of the sad and negative things about our modern tech age. But anyway the average household awareness of whats going on and how fast they gathered the info and the social buzz that surrounded a topic was (in the 90's) at a new level of obtainability and even without actually requesting it was much more easily found even if by default. One would just know about it. This was not really the same case to quite that same degree prior to that time. The Buzz about Tiger and golf was magnified much faster and much easier and also greater than it would have done so prior. The biggest explosion to happen to golf wasn't just because of Tiger. Imo its was Tiger and his story combined with a new era of easy and faster information travel, obtainability and exposure.

 

[GoldenBuff]

I think most of the potential for growing golf is international. Emerging economies are creating opportunity, opening the door for a large number of new golfers.

In the US the goal has to be getting young people into the golf pipeline. I don't know if the sharing economy is something that will sustain among younger cohorts or not, but one option might be to think about shared memberships, shared clubs, and so on. I would also think these large social indoor golf facilities can introduce a lot of people to golf in an interesting way.

 

[ntanygd760]

The golf course building boom in China hit a little snag when they started to enforce the old no building golf courses rule. All about remodeling patches of land that had something resembling a golf hole but had a permit.

 

[rollin]

But I wonder about kids. What I mean is was golf ever really grown via through our youth? Wasnt it always the case where the general masses would only really get involved at a later time in life? Of course there were always exceptions and always some percentage who played from a young age. But wasn't that far from the norm? Is that part of the equation really any less than it ever was before? Not compared to the Tiger boom, but just in general throughout many past decades of golf. Just wsnt always something a whole ton of average young kids normally did. No?

Not that it wouldn't help grow the game but just that it really wsnt any different. Most kids with some exception usually did not play golf. It was kind of always that way.

 

[ntanygd760]

I first played with my dad as a little kid. Never played much till these days but sort of knew how to. I imagine very few kids golf whose parents or other family member don't already.

 

[Big SoIL]

But I wonder about kids. What I mean is was golf ever really grown via through our youth? Wasnt it always the case where the general masses would only really get involved at a later time in life? Of course there were always exceptions and always some percentage who played from a young age. But wasn't that far from the norm? Is that part of the equation really any less than it ever was before? Not compared to the Tiger boom, but just in general throughout many past decades of golf. Just wsnt always something a whole ton of average young kids normally did. No?

Not that it wouldn't help grow the game but just that it really wsnt any different. Most kids with some exception usually did not play golf. It was kind of always that way.

I agree that the majority of people pick the game up after there playing days are done in other sports, but it doesn't have to be that way. We're still a long way from golf competing for young athletes from the other major sports, but if the game is game to have a sustainable growth that will have to change. How that happens, I have no idea.

 

[rollin]

I agree that the majority of people pick the game up after there playing days are done in other sports, but it doesn't have to be that way. We're still a long way from golf competing for young athletes from the other major sports, but if the game is game to have a sustainable growth that will have to change. How that happens, I have no idea.

Yes, but if was never really the case before and wasn't ever any problem than why does that have to be an answer to a problem now. I think this all comes back to the point that golf's decline was actually much more about the fact that it just isn't what it was during the Tiger explosion. But as said that golf explosion was never a norm. the sport quickly reached heights it never did before and faster than it ever did before. Just not fair imo to compare today vs that recent and (out of the norm) explosion. I mean there was really nothing wrong with golf before that, (at least i don't think so but could be wrong) so why is there really anything wrong with it now? In fact I'd bet there are still many more playing golf now and also from many more different demographics than there was before that explosion.

In the end I think economics along with current happenings on tour and along with the social changes we go through are all what will always be the greatest driving forces behind the popularity of golf at any given time. Golf never will dominate the publics interest quite like it did during the Tiger boom again unless those three things work out together better than expected. It was a one time magical moment in our somewhat modern golf history. Was a great story, good economics, and a change in social interest for various reasons that gravitated towards golf. Imo I think golf is really only getting back to normalcy now. That greatness imo was never going to last forever. And then the further it expanded (overly so imo) it only worked to create a larger void when it calmed back down. So the downfall became magnified even more. The unusually great influx came back to normalcy and left an impression that golf is dying when compared to that great influx which is not really fair to do imo, and then the over expansion from the influx is leaving a much larger void which works towards magnifying the situation even more so. Everyone who could, got involved in the golf business and businesses and courses opened up like never before. This all only worked to now leave a much bigger void as golf gets back down to normalcy magnifying the situation worse than it really is and everyone now scratching their heads wondering what has happened. .

 

[sposey013168]

Maybe I am in the minority but I agree with what buckjob said at the king, we actually need less golfers

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[ArmyGolf]

Maybe I am in the minority but I agree with what buckjob said at the king, we actually need less golfers

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I selfishly agree. Hard enough to get a tee time on a sunny day around here, and there is a direct relationship between the amount of golfers and the ignorance of golfers.