Considering the greatness of the sport...

[Tom Huckaby]

John:

I fully agree I am a fine example of why participation in the game has declined, given my own has declined MASSIVELY, in the last ten years particularly.

As for your pronouncements about me, you have some right, some very very wrong.  But what the hell, guilty as charged.

TH

[John Kavanaugh]

Huck,

Which is wrong?  I hope you are not going to say that you are forced to live in a land of unaffordable golf. 

[Tom Huckaby]

Huck,

Which is wrong?  I hope you are not going to say that you are forced to live in a land of unaffordable golf. 

John - I'm not going to play your games.  Get your jollies elsewhere.  Once again you take a decent discussion and turn it into a personal attack.  You remain the king of that - congratulations.

TH

[Kalen Braley]

JK,

In all fairness, you should make your top 10 list of why you are everything that is right with golf.

[John Kavanaugh]

Huck,

That is not my intention.  I think there are specific reasons that the game is failing and simply chose you because of your open book personality.  Lets take the first issue about how you say you would never join a course that would treat your daughter with less status than yourself.  This reminds me of an advertising executive who would refuse to buy ads on Ophra because her show caters to women.  Would you agree that if Ophra decided to change her format and guests in a manner to attempt to grab the demographic of people who currently have little interest in her show her current viewership would suffer.  What is the difference between that example and golf courses that adjust to the needs of very few people who have any desire to play.  You may gain one viewer for every three lost.  Golf like Ophra needs to know its market and entertain and enthrall those people leaving behind the few in favor of the many.  The notion that golf should be all things to all people on all courses all the time is what leaves the traditional golfer wondering why to get off the couch when you can enjoy family time where it should be enjoyed...The family room.

[JESII]

John,

That's the clubs fault, not the consumer.

Golf clubs have lost sight of the focused business model.

Are there enough people like Tom to build a club for? I would think, but noone has looked for them.

[John Kavanaugh]

John,

That's the clubs fault, not the consumer.

Golf clubs have lost sight of the focused business model.

Are there enough people like Tom to build a club for? I would think, but noone has looked for them.

JES,

The problem is that clubs have been building for people like Tom.  Please note that modern successful clubs like Sand Hills, Ballyneal, Bandon and many other remote courses are not specifically built to exclude women and children but their remoteness and sometimes walking only policy make them in reality a old fashioned kind of guy hangout.  If carts do anything they cost a guy one more excuse to go out on his own.  I am not defining women and children so much by sex or age but by attitude.

Walking only clubs are a fantastic method of weeding out those weak of more than knee.

[Bradley Anderson]

Our game is actually suffering not because of architecture or architects but from the stupidity or more appropriately the greed of the developer to place a course on an indifferent section of land.

In American developement, a certain amount of land needs to be set aside as green space, for water retention. Developers learned that the best use of that water compensatory storage land was a golf course. Because it gave them both bites of the apple - the lots which fronted the golf course could command a significantly higher price. If that land had been left as prairie or wetlands, it would not command the same lot value. After the lots are all sold, the developer has no more interest in keeping the course nice. Now someone else takes it over and tries to run it on golf revenues alone, finding that it very well may not have been designed to make money on greens fees, but on lot sales.

I guess that could make people indifferent to the game, because this kind of a facility often lacks a soul and an identity.

So many of these golf courses were built that the properties which do have some soul and identity to them are struggling to survive, owing to the saturation of their market with development golf courses. Sadly, those are the golf courses that will go out of business (to more development), leaving the development golf courses to take over what was formerly their market share of the golf public.  

I kind of agree that there is a lot about how golf has been developed lately, that could make people indifferent to the game. But I still think that new golfers will come from an evangelistic effort not unlike how religions are perpetuated.

[JESII]

We agree...so then back to who is the poster child for declining golf interest...It's the equivalent Oprah trying to sell you Viagra, right? The course owners and operators and management.

[John Kavanaugh]

Huck,

Let's consider your role in the broken handicap system.  One of the great things about golf is the social and business aspect of the member/guest.  Many peoples first exposure to a golf club is in such tournaments where the handicap system seems to award those who cheat best before the tournament ever starts.  Given the fragile nature of job security for golf pros today don't you agree a fix by anonymous raters of courses such as yourself would best serve the game?  Please, take a stance.

[John Kavanaugh]

We agree...so then back to who is the poster child for declining golf interest...It's the equivalent Oprah trying to sell you Viagra, right? The course owners and operators and management.

No, this falls under Huckphactor 4.  He puts what he perceives to be the wants of his family above his forgotten needs.

Owners and operators and management of golf courses respond to what their members say they want.  Sadly for most those wants are first filtered by the wife and kids.

[Lou_Duran]

If golf is losing its buzz, it has nothing to do with gca or George Bush as a poster intimated.  While factors vary depending on the area, the competition with an increasing number of alternative activities is the leading cause if the game or sport is indeed in decline.  I had but a few choices on how to spend my free time growing up and during early adulthood.  Today, with 100 plus channels of TV, the internet, electronic games, numerous organized sports, entertainment and shopping malls, home rec centers, etc., spending 2-6 hours at the golf course may be less attractive to some.  Is this bad for society or golf, for that matter?  Not necessarily. 

[Charlie Goerges]

Wow, this is really re-treading most of the same things on the original "we have ceded our recreation time to our kids" thread.

Tom, John, both of you have made some excellent points.

Tom, where I disagree with you (and probably John as well) is in the idea that golf can't be for a family what kids' soccer is. I think it can, but generally isn't. (Dan Kelly, I think this is what you are referring to.)

John, I disagree with your contention that the decision not to play much golf is entirely personal. The reasons for this are to numerous to count, so I'll give my own personal example.

For my part, I would love to steal away from work a couple of afternoons a week and play 9 holes and get out once on the weekend. Unfortunately this is kind of difficult to do on a bicycle (my wife has a car but, alas, she seems to want to drive it). My kids are not in any activities because they are too young. In a few years when they are older I'll be dragging them with me to the range/course much of the time. I won't be leaving them with my wife, because she works a vastly different schedule than I do. Now this is not meant to be a self-pity party. It's no-one's problem but mine, and I think it will be only temporary.

As for living where there is affordable golf, there are a couple of courses within driving distance that I would describe as affordable. I could move 50 miles in any direction and the same couple of courses would still be my affordable options. I live here because my family is here and I like it here.

[Bradley Anderson]

When superintendents gained power and pushed the strong pro aside golf lost two of its most enduring factors for the very people that grew the game....honest competition and debauchery have been replaced by handicap cheats and horti/torti-culturists.  A strong pro, with a smile on his face and either a drink, or on Mondays a different woman, in his hands could introduce young men to a manly mans world that put a spice in golf missing today.  He would orchestrate competitions where the scratch champion was "The Champion" while flight winners were just that and only that.  People wanted to have lower handicaps to earn his respect while sandbaggers were quickly shown the door and the butt of many a joke.   It is not my intention to insult our modern superintendent but do find it interesting that as the game turned towards conditioning over competition everything became more effeminate.   Everybody, no matter how skilled, became equally important to the club.  Money and trophies for all flights became the same.  People shop for equipment at the mall.  Equality, equality, equality.  Yech.  You might as well stay home, remodel the "master suite", work on the yard and watch junior make an all star team while you glad hand your travel team coach.  In other words, when I took up the game I wasn't promised a rose garden so why make the gardener the focus or our sport?

John,

The first golf professional I ever worked with was a guy named Howie who was at Bonnie Brook and then later at Midlane, right up the road from Foss Park in North Chicago - I think you mentioned that you used to play Foss Park.

Anyways, Howie drew a lot of people to the game of golf in that area. You might have even met him. I worked with Howie and I looked up to him a lot. He had what I would call golf sensibility. And the pro-shop was a citadel of worship to Howie. Your views on the golf pro are really not as crazy as they read (and that's coming from a golf course superintendent).

The first time I met Howie he told me that he would guide me through my first season. Howie would go golfing with me and we would spend hours on the greens talking about pin placements. And he would tell me: that pin placement is horseshit.  

I just don't get it why you think that the superintendents are to blame for everything that is wrong with the game.

[Kirk Gill]

Nope.  I'm gonna stick with team sports being far more attractive - and doable - than golf, and add to it that the presence of video games just adds to the non-golf things to do, such that even in pro-golf situations like we would seem to have here, golf participation remains in the decline.  Even when newbies are given the opportunity to play and learn, the hooks don't set in like they once did.

My kids play, and love, team sports AND video games. Sometimes they sulk when they "have to" go outside and play. I don't like that. I know for a fact that a big part of the lure of golf for them is getting to spend a few hours alone with the old man. I'm not going to argue with the notion that things are different now as far as the plethora of available choices, etc. But there is also the notion that as a parent I get to participate in those choices. I'm not going to have my kids leading me around by the nose and tell me everything that they're going to do. I have always intended to at least expose them to my enthusiasms, and see if any of them take hold. I'm not going to jam golf down their throats, but I'm going to take the time and make the effort to see if I can get them hooked on MY favorite game. I'm not Amish, but at the same time I don't feel compelled to let current societal mores dictate the kinds of things my kids are going to do. And if I AM shoving golf down their throats, all I want is for it to be easier and less expensive !!!

[John Kavanaugh]

When superintendents gained power and pushed the strong pro aside golf lost two of its most enduring factors for the very people that grew the game....honest competition and debauchery have been replaced by handicap cheats and horti/torti-culturists.  A strong pro, with a smile on his face and either a drink, or on Mondays a different woman, in his hands could introduce young men to a manly mans world that put a spice in golf missing today.  He would orchestrate competitions where the scratch champion was "The Champion" while flight winners were just that and only that.  People wanted to have lower handicaps to earn his respect while sandbaggers were quickly shown the door and the butt of many a joke.   It is not my intention to insult our modern superintendent but do find it interesting that as the game turned towards conditioning over competition everything became more effeminate.   Everybody, no matter how skilled, became equally important to the club.  Money and trophies for all flights became the same.  People shop for equipment at the mall.  Equality, equality, equality.  Yech.  You might as well stay home, remodel the "master suite", work on the yard and watch junior make an all star team while you glad hand your travel team coach.  In other words, when I took up the game I wasn't promised a rose garden so why make the gardener the focus or our sport?

John,

The first golf professional I ever worked with was a guy named Howie who was at Bonnie Brook and then later at Midlane, right up the road from Foss Park in North Chicago - I think you mentioned that you used to play Foss Park.

Anyways, Howie drew a lot of people to the game of golf in that area. You might have even met him. I worked with Howie and I looked up to him a lot. He had what I would call golf sensibility. And the pro-shop was a citadel of worship to Howie. Your views on the golf pro are really not as crazy as they read (and that's coming from a golf course superintendent).

The first time I met Howie he told me that he would guide me through my first season. Howie would go golfing with me and we would spend hours on the greens talking about pin placements. And he would tell me: that pin placement is horseshit.  

I just don't get it why you think that the superintendents are to blame for everything that is wrong with the game.

Bradley,

I bought a house on Lewis Avenue in Waukegan in 1985 and would walk on Bonnie Brook where I had a season pass.  I do not remember the pro at the time but do seem to recall an excellent golfing atmosphere.  I think superintendents are great for the game and congratulate them on their grasp of power and wages in the industry.  I just believe in more of pro based industry. 

[Jim_Kennedy]

If golf is losing its buzz, it has nothing to do with gca or George Bush as a poster intimated

Lou,
You can't have it both ways. If, as you said "factors vary with the area", then the reasons others have given are in some cases no less valid than the ones you listed.
Actually, some of the reasons given on this thread are posted by people who work in the golf industry, making them possibly more valid than yours as they are hearing them from the horse's mouth, their members.








  

[Bradley Anderson]

John,

In 1985, Howie was at Bonnie Brook.

I lived on Poplar Street in Waukegan, across the street from Glen Flora, from 1991 till just this year. Did you ever get to play Glen Flora? I played Bonnie Brook all the time. That is one great public golf course.

I have to agree with you John that the golf pro is the priest, if I may borrow the term, of the club. But every role at the club has an important function. And I guess you know that. 

[Tom Huckaby]

Nope.  I'm gonna stick with team sports being far more attractive - and doable - than golf, and add to it that the presence of video games just adds to the non-golf things to do, such that even in pro-golf situations like we would seem to have here, golf participation remains in the decline.  Even when newbies are given the opportunity to play and learn, the hooks don't set in like they once did.

My kids play, and love, team sports AND video games. Sometimes they sulk when they "have to" go outside and play. I don't like that. I know for a fact that a big part of the lure of golf for them is getting to spend a few hours alone with the old man. I'm not going to argue with the notion that things are different now as far as the plethora of available choices, etc. But there is also the notion that as a parent I get to participate in those choices. I'm not going to have my kids leading me around by the nose and tell me everything that they're going to do. I have always intended to at least expose them to my enthusiasms, and see if any of them take hold. I'm not going to jam golf down their throats, but I'm going to take the time and make the effort to see if I can get them hooked on MY favorite game. I'm not Amish, but at the same time I don't feel compelled to let current societal mores dictate the kinds of things my kids are going to do. And if I AM shoving golf down their throats, all I want is for it to be easier and less expensive !!!

Kirk:

Perhaps I'm just a little further along this process than you.

My kids have many opportunities to play golf, as do their friends.  I have not jammed golf down my kids' throats, but I have taken every opportunity to expose them to it. 

They prefer team sports.

So maybe I am too influenced by my own example.  But I also know basically no one whose kids play golf of their own volition.  It just plain doesn't seem to get the hooks into kids like it did to us.

As for why that is, as I say that's a different discussion.  But I just can't get past the fact that that is the state of things.

Hopefully your kids will get the hooks in.  If they do, I find it hard to believe they will be in the majority.

And that remains my point.  Sure some kids will take to golf.  The majority, such that it replaces team sports as the norm?

That I can't see.

TH

[TEPaul]

Adam:

You asked me in an IM to comment. You also said that you felt architecture might be to blame for the waning popularity of golf or to blame for the fact it isn't increasing in popularity.

I do not believe that case can be made very well. To me there are probably so many contibuting factors to the waning popularity of golf (if that actually is happening) that include many things that have nothing to do with golf--eg general economic conditions, competition from other interests and perhaps even the dynamics of clubs themselves.

Mackenzie said that golf should be enjoyable and interesting and that it wouldn't be if luck was eliminated. That's sort of a feel-good statement that a lot of those old architects mentioned and they had an ulterior reason for doing that I think. Luck of some sort will always be in the game and most understand that.

Furthermore, this thread is an example of how differently people look at golf and what they are looking for in golf. I guess for that reason I developed my "Big World" theory that golf and architecture should be different enough in a spectrum sense to offer everyone the type of golf and architecture they want. Problem is you can't really do that very well on a single course but you can do it across the board.

I was on the boards of GAP and Pa Golf Assoc for years and for that reason got to see most all the clubs and courses around Philadelphia and many in Pennsylvania and I have never seen any particular club's popularity and endurance sustained necessarily because of the type of golf course they had and the original architect that built it. There are just many other reasons involved that make clubs popular or not.

I don't even know that golf needs to grow right now. Maybe it actually needs to shrink for a while. Maybe golf has been overused and misused in various ways and sort of fitted in some contexts it was not really supposed to be in, at least the way people like us on here look at it---it's hard to say. In the same breath, to supply an honest answer to you the question should be asked how represented our kinds of opinions are with golf or ever have been. Again, that's pretty hard to answer.

Rich Goodale said Max Behr was out of touch because of his theory of the "game mind" of man. Rich may be right about that, maybe he was out of touch with the everyday golfer and what he thought he wanted. It sure has occurred to me that some golfers, maybe many, don't even like the idea of naturalism in golf and that's why I started that other thread about the TRUTH of the DYNAMICS of what golfers really do like and again, what they really do like just could be all over the place and probably always has been. People have individual tastes and opinons and they are always going to be different. That's probably a good thing in the final analysis.

Again, that's why I developed my "Big World" theory and why I guess I've never really looked to architecture itself to blame something on.

But I know what I like and I also know where to find it. I just hope others can figure out how to do the same when it comes to golf and even its architecture. This may not have been the kind of answer to your question you were looking for and if not, sorry about that.

[Adam Clayman]

Tom, Appreciate the take.
 
I've always looked to the sport as a guide/teacher in understanding human nature. That's proably why I look to place blame, or at least quantify why something so great(the sport), could become so bastardized (the industry).

In my own case, I just hopped a fence to be exposed to this game as a kid. It's field was a city owned course but clearly it had elements to it which help keep and pique my interest. As the times got better and courses started to become high dollar outlets, I still would return to that old city course because the golf was all it needed to be. People had become such golf snobs, and, this city course was relatively uncrowded and inexpensive. So, I guess the answers of the many posters above about time and cost will always be true.

However, deep down in my soul I sense the differences in GCA are likely what separates the golfers who are passionate, and, those who merely play the game. We should all hope that this period of contraction will cause some reflection on the variables that make successful sustainable golf, learn from the mistakes and not repeat'em.