Grow the game? Look at where this is coming from! Kudos to Mike Young - he's spot on. Don't worry about us architects, we'll survive -somehow, but for many of the associates out there, they will either need a wife w/a good job or find a new line of work. This isn't the 1st down-turn I've lived through, probably not the last. But, I don't have a big manufacturing plant and network of distributors to feed. The ones who really want to "grow the game" are those who want to sell stuff to the participants. More golfers mean more golf balls and clubs to sell, more over-priced mowers to sell, more fertilizer to sell, more Feasibility studies to sell etc.
When golf became a Business, many outsiders flocked in to what was perceived as a 'fun' way to make money. Now that things have turned, there will an exodus, just like in the past. Road builders will go back to building roads, golf pros/supts will under-bid management companies who have outgrown their economies-of-scale and cut out the bloated overhead, but those manufacturers will have to cut capacity & prices;. Thye will resist for as long as they can but... eventually market forces will dictate.
The hit to the 2nd half of the baby-boomer generations prime earning years will resonate for a long time and perhaps even produce a "new normal". But golf doesn't need to be 'grown'. I would be happy if it was just Maintained - but this is probably wishful thinking. Many of the models anticipated wealthier Boomers, living longer and retiring earlier. Well that's been shot to hell. And the Gen X/Y/Zer's don't want to expend the time to get proficient at, what is a hard, frustrating, and expensive sport to learn. Muni's became profit centers to subsidize other activies (or management companies) and I fear Tom's days of almost free golf for kids is long gone. It costs more to play our 9-hole muni (run by management company) than twilite at the nearby highend DF.
What is different about this down-turn is that it has, or will, outlast the backlog of work. Golf course development is like a supertanker, it takes a while to get going and even longer to stop. Or, put another way, a car on an icey road. we are now slidding through the stop We may crash, end up in a ditch, or get lucky and just come to a stop sign somewhere down the road. but in any event, it will take a long time to get back up to speed.