State Of The Game

Shackelford points us to this extremely good Matt Brennan piece on the state of our game post-Tiger.  It's a long and thoughtful piece, and I encourage you to no be put off by the fact that it's on Deadspin, better known for Michael Jordan gambling rumors and Rachel Uchitel photos.

The piece is titled, What Happens To Golf After Tiger?", but it seems to me that its real value is in exploring what the Tiger Woods era, Tigermania as it was called at the time, did and did not do for the game of golf.  Loyal readers will grasp that there's probably far more of the latter than the former...

But first, here's Shack's excerpt, no doubt valuable:

Economics are important, and upswings or downturns in three key sectors— employment, home values, and investment portfolios—are an indicator of golf's success, Mona told me. In

this, he echoed the USGA's Jerris, who emphasized that the sport's fortunes have fluctuated with the broader economy since the Roaring Twenties gave way to the Great Depression. 

"Here's what we know from 100 years of data about golf," he said. "The only real metric that matters in determining participation in the game is household income." 

While Jerris, Mona, and Ted Bishop, president of the PGA of America, all described golf's exclusivity as a "misperception"—80% of golf courses in the United States are accessible to the public, and the median green fee is an affordable $26—income, and therefore class status, is a workable proxy if you're trying to determine whether golf appeals to someone. This may explain why the sport's rarefied image remains so tenacious, even among regular players.

Kudos to the folks at Deadspin for the cool gif stolen above.

Here's Brennan's lede for what I find the most interesting part:

But in the years since, years that correspond closely with my own life as a fan, "Tigermania" has

come to encompass a set of assumptions about Woods, sports, and stardom that goes beyond the size of his galleries or the quality of his play. The received wisdom has it that Woods is not only a transcendent figure but also a transformative one, an athlete whose otherworldly talents opened golf to the masses, and thus brought about a seismic shift in the sport. 

Transcendent and transformative are not synonyms, however. Indeed, conversations with golfing insiders and a closer look at data related to television ratings, tournament purses, participation, and equipment sales reveal a more complicated picture of Tigermania's causes and consequences. Woods's singular brilliance was not the sole factor in professional golf's lucrative boom of the past two decades, nor has his iconic presence benefited all sectors of the sport equally. The modest reality of Woods's influence hardly lives up to the mythos that surrounds him, and as golf stands on the cusp of a future after Tiger, the time has come to reckon with the difference.

And there's lots of data to back it up.  This is a subject that we've had cause to pick over quite a bit here,  and it's equal parts good and bad news.  The bad news being that the guy we've credited for everything good in our game the last few years is on the back nine of his career.  But the good news is that we've given him far too much credit in that regard.

In the few months I've been blogging, think about how many doom-and-gloom prognoses have we dissected, you know the ones where television ratings are down 10% year-over-year, so naturally we'll see 10% fewer round splayed and 10% fewer SLDR drivers sold.  You don't need my astute powers of analysis to understand that those who aren't interested in a Masters final round sand Tiger probably aren't your core audience and weren't playing too many of those rounds.

Golf gets in trouble when it loses sight of the fact that it's a niche sport, building too many golf courses or releasing new $500 drivers every hour-and-a-half.  Otherwise it's just fine, inhabiting a small but valuable space.  That which can be done to expose more people to the game, and I do think Tiger provided a cool factor that was helpful, is great, but the appeal has to be in the game itself.

A couple of further stories tangentially related to this subject.  First, noted philosophers Charlie Rymer and Matt Ginella have proposed a set of revised rules for our game:

1. MAXIMUM SCORE Double par (i.e., 6 on par-3s, 8 on par-4s, 10 on par-5s).

2. PENALTIES All are 1 stroke, including out-of-bounds, water and lateral hazards, lost balls and unplayable lies. Drop a ball near where the original was lost and play on.

3. SEARCH TIME Two minutes to look for your ball. If lost, proceed under Rule 2.

4. UNFORTUNATE LIES With your playing partners’ consent, balls may be dropped out of divots or footprints, away from tree roots and any other dangerous lies.

5. CONCEDED PUTTS Putts may be conceded with your playing partners’ consent.

6. EQUIPMENT No restrictions, including number of clubs.

7. COMMON SENSE When in doubt, use common sense and fairness.

I've no doubt that capping players at a ten on a Par-5 will rock the world, but is there anyone that believe allowing players twenty clubs from which to choose will a,) Speed up play; b.) Make the game more affordable or, c.) increase the player's enjoyment thereof?

And judging from my experience at Willow Ridge, inflexible adherence to the rules of golf doesn't make my list of top fifty problems.  So much drivel gets bandied about, it's hard to know what people really believe.  But I think most folks understand that they can play golf without keeping a scorecard, and therefore do whatever they want on the course to make it fun, with no requirement for a hall pass from Charlie and Matt.

Lastly, a debt of gratitude to Shackelford for posting this 1925 Max Behr letter to his fellow members at Lakeside Golf Club:

The problems of golf are not caused by the rules of the game.  In fact it's those rules, requiring us to play the ball as it lies, that create some of the most profound joys in the game, as the appreciation of a well-conceived and executed recovery shot would be severely lessened if every shot were played from a perfectly-crafted lie.