Golf is dying

ClubSteeler

That's what I read, and I am starting to agree.

My summer league has gone from 8 flights on 6 courses to 4 flights on 3 courses over the last 3 years.

It is a corporate league, there are no competing leagues, and my company has been hiring like crazy.

The most popular flights, that fill up the quickest and are at max capacity are the ones on the city Muni Course with an average Par 4 length of 320 yards, little danger, perfectly straight, you can slice it like crazy, and play from the other fairway, slope of about 112 I think. Boring, even to a hack like me, but so easy to survive several horrible shots a round.

sdandrea1

ClubSteeler

I HATE playing in league matches on cupcake courses like that. My first work league was on a NAVY Base and it was as you described. The guys who couldn't hit it straight (same guys I have to give a LOT of strokes to) could recover from bad tee shots. I had to play lights out to compete. Then we moved to a course that was VERY narrow, guarded by deep woods both sides of most fairways. I fared much better there.

Golf is alive and well here in the retirement communities in FL. More babyboomers retiring. Our leagues are growing.

SVonhof

I work for a company with 6000+ employees on a 1 square mile campus. We have ~55 people in our golf league. It is sad. I know there are lots more golfers out there, but I am thinking that most just don't want to play at specific courses on specific days and would rather play when and where they want. Plus, if you play in a tournament, it always costs more than if you get a tee time through GolfNow or TeeOff or some other discount service (or straight from the course).

I know some don't join also because they don't feel they are "good enough", even though I tell them we have guys in our league with 30 handicaps and they are regular players...

Our twilight league is played at a quality course just down the street from work and a few years ago, we had 120 players, this past year, it dropped to 75. That is a big drop in one year. We will see what happens this year.

garyt1957

SVonhof

I agree about leagues. I'm not the type to commit to a certain time each week, plus they tend to be ridiculously slow. I did play in some tournaments last year and like that better, I can pick and choose when I play. You're right though, for what the tournaments cost me, I my wife and I could both play and usually at a better course.

Hoss7504

I would disagree that golf is "dying". I'm in my early 30's and I have more friends that play golf, than those that don't (and I'm a very popular guy 😏 ).

Last year, we started an annual golf outing for our fraternity, and 16 out of 40 active members (kids still in college) came back to campus to play in the middle of the summer. They said if we do it on our football bye week (which we're doing this year), we'd have more like 25 actives play. That's almost 2/3 of the guys and they're all young.

I agree with @SVonhof that guys just don't want to play the same course over and over. I play in a weekly league only because it's free. If I had to pay to be a part of the league, I wouldn't do it.

Just my 2 cents.

Tinker

I'm a better player than all the people I play with. All my old friends are retired or close to it, my son and sons in law are raising families and watching their money (so am I and my retired friends). They want 35 dollar golf and a course where you don't spend all your day looking for your ball. We used to belong to the DuPont country club where they hosted an LPGA major( the McDonald's Championship). Those days are long gone. The fees got too high for everybody and now DuPont has the courses up for sale. 5800 yards, 35 bucks around and 2 dollar beers and the course is crowded. The courses that are 7000 yards, 75 bucks and 5 dollar beers are ghost towns, 3 have already folded.

ClubSteeler

The golf dying here has nothing to do with $$.

Our 9 hole league rounds are $9-$12 walking, and $13-$17 riding, no matter how nice the course is.

Darrell_KC

Id have to agree with Tinker, from what I've seen in KC at least. Theres a few nice premium courses that are hurting. Sand Creek Station in Newton (north of Wichita) is a SUPER nice course, extremely well maintained but fairly poor location. They are hurting bigtime. They are constantly running specials to get people to come over there, and if I lived closed Id play as much as I could. At any rate, there is no way they are making their money back, and its only time before they have to start cutting things out if they havent already.

Id imagine that for cheaper courses with cheaper maintenance, they are doing as good as before, but the courses that really work to put effort into the experience arent seeing enough return to justify costs right now.

PA-PLAYA

Golf isn't "dying." There's been a correction of sorts going on for the last several years, which isn't unusual in any business.

We just assume that since interest isn't at the same level it was back in the early-mid 2000's that it's on the verge of shriveling up. Yes, courses have closed and will continue to close in certain low population areas. Yes, retailers have closed and will continue to close (a lot of that due to discount golf internet sales and eBay).

But it's not dying. The local muni will remain open. My private club is doing fine, because they're being creative and aggressive with their marketing approach and changing things up. "Stale" is dying. Facilities/businesses that have sit on their hands the past 5 years and can't figure out how to be creative enough to survive are falling off to the wayside and making more room for the better-run facilities/businesses.

It's really just the cycle of business in general.

And I do feel bad for the facilities/businesses closing shop... lives are impacted when that happens. But challenging economic times call for innovative leadership. And sadly, we don't have an awful lot of that today in America. We've got a lot of hard-working employees who show up every day, but leadership on the other hand....

Typhoon

Like PaPlaya said, its not dying...golf courses need to get creative. maybe a 6 hole rate? ...Punch cards, Scrambles without a cause other than having food and beer at the conclusion and some pro shop merch prizes.

You need innovation or you end up like Radio Shack.

darpar

It's not dying here in So.Utah....in fact where we didn't before,now we have to make a tee time on Sundays
for our little group sermon.
And most all the leagues (which there are many) seem to be flourishing to the extent that people get
turned away when a league reaches it's limit for that particular day.

PA-PLAYA

The courses I played down in Florida were pretty full. Went inside for a bottle of water prior to the afternoon rounds... guess what - $3.00/bottle.

Tell me - what other recreational activity would charge 3 bucks for a 16-oz bottle of basic, purified water?!

If the game is dying, it hasn't quite resonated across the board.

Typhoon

I hear alot of courses down south u can buy a discount card for 5-6 courses...that seems like a good idea. Nothing like that up here thougb

Sneakylong

Golf is readjusting to it's period of overcapacity. So, is it dying? It certainly is receding with more people leaving the game than coming into the game. And with more courses closing all the time.

There's a course very close to my house that's been there for years. It was what I call a working mans course. Nothing great but very reasonably priced. You could play there in the summer for $21.00 including a cart.

Well a couple years ago it went belly up and it's gone back to nature.

Bigborgel

Brown Golf, owns a bunch of courses in Florida, has in the past few years bought 7 courses in the Hilton Head/Bluffton area, Many of their courses you can play for $32-40 a round and they are reasonably well maintained. Their primo course here on the island is Dolphin Head GC, for locals who are non-members it's $49, and for tourists it's around $ 65. It points out to me that a lot of courses must be in financial trouble, as they were for sale.

accufitgolf

Bigborgel

The way Brown makes it is they share resources such as only one head greens super for several courses. Same with a PGA pro. They also share equipment. Tremendous cost savings there.

Brown himself says his $35 courses are worth $35 so do not expect top level conditions and service for $35. You get what you get for $35.

Rickochet

Is golf dying? I think statistics give us a good clue. I don't have the stats but it would be interesting to see how many courses have opened and closed in the past 10 years. Of those courses open has their play increased or decreased? There is only a fraction of component companies still around. OEM brands are dying on the vine and are dirt cheap on the internet now.

Maybe dying is not the best description but I still see it in a continuing decline as it has been for years.

Sneakylong

Rickochet

Don't remember the exact number, but I listen to PGA radio and Hank Haney had the numbers and he said more courses have closed than have opened. And more people are leaving the game than coming into the game.

Again, we're adjusting to the post Tiger effect. The overcapacity needed to be readjusted.

Par4QC

If you think golf is dying, just pick up the phone, call any random course, and ask for a specific tee time for that day. I'd be curious to know how many times you will get the time asked for.

Rickochet

Par4QC If you think golf is dying, just pick up the phone, call any random course, and ask for a specific tee time for that day. I'd be curious to know how many times you will get the time asked for.

I think that depends on your area. Our courses are crying for play. Only those courses with stay and play capacities are doing well when they get overwhelmed by PFO's (People From Ohio).

DC300

Par4QC Here, you could get on damn near any course like that +- 15 minutes as long as it didn't run into their leagues.

We don't want to admit it, but golf is dying in a big way. That is to say that it is going back to pre-Tiger status. There isn't much excitement for the younger crowd around the game and courses are having to work to get people in. During the boom, courses were built and people just showed up and paid what they asked. Not the case anymore. The sport will survive, but it won't thrive. After the guys in their 30's move through, there will be a helluva fall off and a lot more problems for courses to stay open. Obviously, that's a ways away, but the boomers aren't going to live forever and that will be another bubble popped before the next cliff.

When Nike moves out of the equipment game and others come and go like the wind, there is a serious issue. Nike was the young gun brand... problem is there aren't enough young guys interested in the game to buy it.

Par4QC

Rickochet Probably so.
I never often make plans to play a day or 2 ahead of time. I'll call around in the a.m. of the day I decide I want to go out. There are times where I have to contact a few different courses just to be able to get 18 in on that day at all. Some courses, cannot even play that same day. But when I do play, the costs are quite reasonable, compared to what I see members here paying. Typical greens fees + carts avg. about $30-35. P.M. rounds are even less. The course I play more than any, I'll pay $28 total, in the afternoon. Lucky me.😉

inconsistent

I think the biggest issue with declining play and players is the time it takes to complete a round. Even a course that can get you around in 4 hours you're still talking about 6 hrs plus. And if you're playing a course that doesn't manager pace of play you're looking at a total of 8 hours. That's a lot of time away from family and a big chunk out of one's day.

Golf isn't going to die. But it is going to have to adapt.