I am doubtful that the "take your child to the golf course" suggestion is the panacea. My dad didn't take me to play golf, and I know many people who got into the game later in life after playing other sports. As Pat Burke notes, many kids just don't seem to take to golf. I offered my daughter the same opportunities to play the game as I did my son and she never gave a twit about it.
Lou,
Thanks for being a good sport after my last jab.
Lou I have been doing informal surveys for several years now where I ask a group of people to relate how they took up golf, and in almost every survey that I have done, at least three quarters of the people say that their interest in the game was cultivated by a family member who took them golfing as a child. Most the time it is a father or a grandfather, but sometimes it is a mom, an older brother, or even an older sister. We did that survey here on GCA a year ago and I think it was consistent with what those averages are generally.
At the last club I was at, I saw maybe 5 father/child rounds in 18 years. But at the club I am at now I see parents and their children playing almost every day, especially on weekends. I love being around a club that is committed to passing on the tradition to the next generation. It is so cool to witness. Golf is a tradition after all.
I might add, that in the American tradition, tough economic times have always made us stronger and wiser about who we are. I think that what we should be learning about ourselves right now is family values. Yea yea that all sounds corny I admit it, but every man I know who has been getting more involved with his kids these days, has been finding way more value in that then when money was easy to make.
I think we can emerge from this tough economic time stronger than we were before, but only if we strengthen our families. And that goes for every demographic and every economic indicator.