Is Golf Dying?

I recently received my Callaway catalog in the mail and one of the lead stories was by George Fellows the CEO on how golf was a dying sport. According to Fellows, golf is dying because it's not growing. He goes on to site lower rounds played, lower viewing audiences and fewer new people taking up the game.

Fellows blames, in part, the discrimination by many clubs against women and juniors with regards to tee time availability. The apparent industry logic that when a male hits 50 or 60 he will automatically wake up one morning and decide that he'll become a golfer is another of Fellow's concerns.

To counter this trend, Fellows wants to see more effort in recruiting youth into the sport. Father son, Mom daughter, or even family team tournaments should be encouraged to get the game going again. In other words, new blood, and more importantly to Callaway, new customers are needed to keep the game viable.

I'm not real sure I know who George has been talking to or what clubs he has been visiting. If he's talking about private courses he probably is correct. However, a glance at any public course in Southern California would seem to counter his observations. Ladies' clubs have popped up that are often times larger than the men's clubs at public courses. Kids? There are so many blue shirted players with chopped down clubs you begin to wonder if there any left to play soccer.

Young adults? Probably the most annoying of all when viewed thru my old eyes. Or maybe I'm just jealous. There is one group of pub crawlers that hold a Triathlon at our course every year. The three sports involved are bowling, golf and pool and they are all played in the same day. By the time they finish their bowling tournament (which starts at 6:00 AM) and get to the course they are well lubricated. Usually they can get around with no major injuries and then pile into their charter bus and head to their final venue, a bar, to play their pool tournament. Bastards never invited me.

A bigger threat to golf is the price of land even in these troubled times. Golf courses that are not part of a development, are not nearly as profitable as say a Mac Mansion development. Fewer courses drives competition for tee times up which drives greens fees up. Add to this mix an increasing practice of municipalities to add additional taxes and fees in an effort to raise money where it can, and you start to price out the very people you need to keep the game alive. In essence you have a recipe for turning the game of golf back to the elitist activity it was 50 years ago.

So is golf dying or is it just being priced out of reach? I still don't understand families that shell out $300 to see a Dodgers' game so maybe I'm not on track here. All I can report is golf seems very much alive (and crowded) in So Cal.

Is Golf a Sport?

Is Golf a sport?

About 30 years ago I was riding in a car with my pompous ass sales manager when we drove by a golf course. "Golf isn't a sport" he said. "Nothing but a bunch of fat asses riding around in carts and drinking beer".

Obviously he didn't know I was a golfer. However thinking back on that jerk, maybe he did and was just trying to put me down. Thirty years ago I was not fat and I walked the course saving the cost of a cart so I could buy more beer. Okay so I fit one of his criteria, big deal.

He of course was a tennis player; the snottiest of the snobbiest.

But is golf a sport? Is walking, or riding, 6500 yards or so and wailing away with a club 80 or 90 times really an athletic activity?

According to Rose Center for Health and Sports Sciences in Denver, it is.

Neil Wolkodoff, the director of the center, examined the play of eight better than average players and and tracked their heart rate, oxygen consumption, carbon dioxide production, and how far they were walking through a few rounds. Wolkodoff said "The study shows there's significant energy expenditure in golf, more than bowling and some other sports it's been compared to. "There are a lot of sports that don't have this level of energy expenditure."

Golfers who walk and carry their clubs burn about 720 calories in a round. The fat guys in carts burn about 410. That's more than an Olympic Curling player at 345. So if you measure it by the energy expended then it ranks higher than at least one Olympic sport.

I'm not sure that's the best way to look at it as I'm guessing pushing a lawn mower over a large yard and raking up the stuff afterwards probably expends more calories than golf. Last time I checked the sports section there wasn't a listing for professional or amateur lawn mowing.

Then there is the image problem. You've got a buffed up Tiger Woods, obviously an athlete; and then you have John Daly's beer gut.

So I guess it's a sport if you think it's a sport. I'm thinking that a Lacross player (another sport that is not in the Olympics) probably thinks those pansy asses in their cute white shorts playing tennis aren't really playing a sport either.

Garcia Could Dethrone Tiger

144 weeks ago, Tiger Woods took the top spot in golf from Vijay Singh and has held on to it ever since. This week at Doral, Sergio Garcia has a mathmatical shot of taking the top spot. Garcia trails Woods by a little over 1 point. How did that happen you ask? Well Woods took eight months off because of a bumb knee. Woods had such a huge lead that he could kick back and not compete and still be number one.

What happens if Garcia wins at Doral? He's the number one golfer with all the press fuss and hooplah that goes with it. He's on top of the world. And then in two weeks Tiger wins the Masters and snatches back the title. Poor Sergio.

We've got a guy in our group, who relatively speaking, is our Tiger Woods. His name is Tad Itow and the little bugger can do no wrong. In the last five weeks he has won the low gross game four times. He tops our money list winning double what the number two guy, me, has won.

You can't help but like Tad when you first meet him. He's my age, kinda quiet and unassuming, very friendly. However, if this guy had been around in the early 40's, he probably would have been in charge of planning the attack on Pearl Harbor.

We play closest to the pin on the par threes and there is nothing more demoralizing than hitting the green with a competitive shot of seven feet or less; then watching Tad stick it inside three. "Oh, is that my ball? So sorry." "You had a good shot. I just got lucky."

And then he gets "lucky" two or three more times in the round.

It's our custom after the round to sit at the picnic tables outside the club house and calculate who won what over beer and bangers. If you are closest on a par 3, you walk around to each of the 20 to 25 guys and collect a dollar. Normally it's a pretty civilized ritual with "good shot" "way to go" often heard. When Itow makes the rounds, he always says thank you as he takes your cash.

There are some in our group who get a bit creative in delivering their dollar when Tad is the winner. This includes sticking the dollar under their belt buckle, rolling the dollar up and sticking it in the left nostril, wiping their butt with the dollar before passing it on, and other unique alternatives to simply handing over the money. The Brits in our group are particularly inventive. I think it has something to do with the funny hats they wear.

Is Tad offended? Who knows. He just smiles, does a little bow, and puts $75 in his pocket.

That Little Dance You Do

Its a two foot putt down hill with a little left break and there are four skins in you drain it. On the practice green you'd be dropping these all day long. But here there are three sets of eyes watching, three brains sending out negative telepathic signals. You start calculating how much you will win; start projecting out to the remaining holes and predicting which of those you have a shot at. You focus on future events rather than the one at hand.

And then it starts. You feel it in your arms first as the muscles tighten. Then it creeps into your hands and your knuckles turn white from the death grip on the shaft. Your legs don't feel balanced. And the questions start. How far back do I take it? How much pace on the ball? Should I baby it in and not risk blowing past the hole? Am I taking too much time?

So you hit it.

It trickles down on a line right of the hole and at the last millisecond cuts left and drops in.

Your arms go up, a leg goes up, and you hop around. It's that little dance you do.

Nobody teaches you this. That little dance is a sub primal instinct that has been inside man since the dawn of time. If you look for it you can see it on every golf course. Three hundred pounders in plaid are doing their best imitation of ballet dancers on drugs. Generally, the poorer the golf skills the longer the dance.

Somebody with better video editing skills than I have is missing out on a great viral clip.

Thank You Ben Hogan

Every golfer goes through ups and downs in the game. Humiliation is, after all, a major part of the sport. Golf is a real test of how you handle humiliation. We've all been there. Nothing goes right (except your slice), you swear, you throw clubs in the pond and generally make an ass out of yourself in front of your group. If it wasn't for the money you were losing to them they would probably tell you to shut up and get off the course.

Then something happens and you seem to be back on course. Many times that "something" is an unfounded confidence in a new club (see Truism #2). Typically this new found confidence disappears before the Master Card bill for the new club reaches your mailbox.

For me it was a bit more lasting.

When my parents where getting ready to move from Chicago to Naples Fl, my Dad found a book as he was cleaning out the attic. It was Ben Hogans' "The Modern Fundamentals of Golf". Dad was not a golfer. He'd go to golf outings to be with his buddies and drink beer. He discribed his golf swing as "killing snakes" and in fact cleared enough land with his divots to start a small corn field. Rather than toss the book he sent it to his golfaholic son in California.

I didn't read it for a year. I mean the book says "Modern Fundamentals" but it was printed in 1957. Isn't that like building a plane based on Wilbur Wright's "Fundamentals of Modern Aerodesign"?

When my game cycled back down into the dumps I decided I needed to do something and I didn't want to spend money on a new club. I cracked open the book and started to read.

Two things jumped out at me. First was the language. It was different, it was more formal, it was 40 years old. Then the illustrations. They were detailed. You could see the position of hands, see what muscles were being used. This was not a book on "golf tips"; this was a book on how to swing the club. Hogan explains how the body parts work in a coordinated fashion and he does it in a fashion that you can feel when you practice. This guy is a genius.

I went out to the range and hit a few buckets. I was amazed at how straight and long I was hitting with no desernable effort. Tempo, tempo, tempo! Ka-Ching, Ka-Ching, Ka-Ching.

That was about 10 years ago and I still get people commenting on my smooth swing. I can't putt for crap but at least I don't embarass myself off the tee. I would highly recommend this book for anybody who is struggling with their swing.

Thanks Ben!