Golf has a world wide marketing problem and there is no short term fix. For years golf has been marketed as something for the wealthy and the retired. Join the country club and buy a mansion. In reality most golfers play on public courses for cheap. There has also been very little push to get youth involved. Most golfers find it annoying when kids are out on the course and don't want them playing on "their" course. Instead kids play sports that are marketed to them and where they are welcome. Basketball, soccer, baseball and football.

I am a skier. The ski hill near my house has busses of school groups every week day. Youth ski teams, clubs for kid's whom parents don't ski, free rentals and lift tickets for the kids. Anything to get them addicted to the sport. Nothing happens for kids at my local golf course. No kids tournaments. No kids group lessons. Nothing. Its been this way for the 40 years I've lived hear. The ski hill is packed and turns a profit. The golf course is empty and always almost out of business.

Golf need to market to kids of all finical background. It will take a generation of this to start make a significant difference.

The other issue Golf has it is losing players also. Take myself. I used to play 20 rounds a year. Would play early and get a nice round in 3 hours to 3-1/2. Now its 4-1/2.
Golf is just to slow and courses are scared to speed up players.
I just went to Vegas with 3 buddies that think 4-1/2 hours is the norm and dont care if they fall 2 groups behind. I choose to sit at the pool than golf with them

Reality is they be the first year I do not play one round of golf

I hate kids in general, not just ones on the golf course. The ones on the course actually tend to be not as awful. I hate terrible parents even more though, their kids are just doomed from the beginning.

I'm going to guess that you don't have kids?

Don't have any and old enough to know I never want any.

I hate to comment that you should never play the back tees unless your handicap is "X". I shoot the same from the blue tees or the tips at my course. It's just simply not fun to me being able to blast it over every fairway bunker that is supposed to be in play off of the tee. Hell, I don't even give them a second thought.

Granted, I probably have a good enough cap to play the tips, but what if you drive the ball great and then lose all of your shots around the green.

The pace of play is all about the person and how they play IMO. I have seen 10 caps play in a foursome in 3 hours. I have also seen other 10 caps play in 5+ hours.

It really depends on the course. There are plenty where you have no business playing the tips unless you are low single digits or better. Torrey Pines comes to mind as one. If the tips are 6800 in the 73/130 range then play away from any box as long as you are just decent.

Hard to keep players interested. Everyone is fighting hard for people's attention. You have 1,000 channels on TV.

I don't know that many jobs where you can make a lot of money and also have time to play golf. It is usually one or the other. And if you don't have money, golf is the last hobby you should take up. Look at the Dan Plan guy. He was begging for funds just to enter tournaments. And if you have kids, forget it.

I've been in and out of the business for years. It is simply too expensive and time consuming for younger people. However gimmicks like enlarging the hole or playing 9 are just dumb. If anything we should scale back the ball and shorten the courses. And daily fees are where even most country clubs will need to tolerate unless they wanna get skinned on dues. The truth is it's a passion sport in a short attention span society. Speeding up play and getting new players are a complete dichotomy. So leave the weekends to the hacks or tee off before 7am a good pro will know how to line things up. And it's suppose to be hard. If you don't desire that pain and grind it's not for you.

Good luck convincing people to switch to a ball that doesn't go as far. As far as courses you can lessen the amount of irrigated turf with out having to shorten it.

Jack Nicklaus thought shortening the ball would be solution. I think it was the cayman ball and it would go 50% as far. I tried it. Too hard to go back to hitting the ball shorter though.

Golf will be fine as a niche sport like bowling. The business outgrew the real demand.

Some say the lack of caddies at courses has hurt because that was another way people got into the game.

http://www.golfwrx.com/379674/the-de...being-ignored/

***“The Avid category started in 1985 with a count of 6.9 million golfers. It peaked at 10.2 million in 2000, and is 6.2 million today. This isn’t a problem; it’s a catastrophe. We’ve lost 4 million folks who were picking up 71 percent of the tab. Now I suspect they haven’t all dropped out, but they certainly have dropped back. Our fix is junior and beginner programs and a millennial focus, in of themselves each a good ideas, but you’re missing something. THESE PROGRAMS WERE ALREADY SUCCESSFUL, AND THEN THEY WEREN’T. We had Avids at 10.2 million in 2000. Where did they go?***

Tiger Woods y'all.

Kids these days basically have zero interest in playing the game. There probably will never be another Tiger Woods that moved the needle as much as he did. You probably have a better chance if you start a Senior golf program and get all of the retirees to play. They have the funds for it and all of the free time in the world.

Agree. Let TopGolf have the kids.

They should be hyper-actively going after seniors and the former golfers that just let it go. Instead they are wasting resources on kids, the vast majority that will never play.

First Tee isn't about getting kids to play golf. It's about giving country club types volunteering cred and tax writeoffs while they're still hanging out on the golf course

From UK and time is the problem for me. I cant be away for 5 hours on a sunday, can't get 18 in after work.

Skived off work, went to a public course on a Tuesday afternoon - course was empty. They would not do a reduced price to play the front 9 only. Its 18 or nothing sir!

what sort of business model like that is going to survive?