Can Golf Be Saved By Capitalism?

I wish I had started learning golf at this age in my elementary school gym. Photo: TGA Premier Golf

I love golf. It?s a great sport and a great passion. It?s also dying.

For over a decade golf participation, the percentage of the population who play, has been dropping. While 2012 had a slight increase over 2011 in rounds played, this number has dropped in most recent years. For several of the past few years, more courses have closed than opened in this country. None of these are signs of health and none bode well for the future.

Professional golf is doing just fine thank you very much, in large part because million dollar plus purses have become routine for average tournaments, while winning Majors and bigger events pay even more, and the FedEx Cup Champion gets a $10 million (yes $10 million) bonus each year even though fans don?t know what it is. For the frequent winners, there is also a fortune to be made in endorsements ? just ask Tiger Woods, who?just notched his stunning 75th Tour win,?and his new Nike partner Rory McIlroy. As a result of all this cash up for grabs, plus the opportunity for a mid-level Tour player to make a seven figure annual income without ever actually wining, there will always be a crop of new young guns following in the footsteps of McIlroy and Bubba Watson.

But the story is much different for those without the skill potential to go pro, which means far more than 99% of golfers and potential golfers. For many of the latter, the very notion of picking up the game is a complete non-starter.

There are several usual suspects bandied about as theories, including today?s shorter attention span and time constraints, while a round of golf, if anything, has gotten longer (thanks in part to the slow playing pros). There is vastly increased competition for kids? time and a generation ago little league was golf?s main rival, while soccer was a rarity and taekwondo and myriad other pursuits hardly had an impact. Today they do. But to my mind the single biggest barrier to golf is the fact that it is really hard and has a steep learning curve. It?s the polar opposite of skiing, where advances in teaching and technology have made it possible to go from never-ever to intermediate in just a few days, and you can learn easily even as an adult. I?ve covered golf for nearly twenty years, and almost everyone I know who is a good player grew up playing. Like language, it is much easier to learn golf as a kid than as an adult, but kids simply are not learning the game ? the old country club model is largely broken.

The industry response has been charity, through non-profits like the First Tee Foundation, backed by everyone important in golf: the USGA, PGA Tour, PGA of America and the LPGA, along with the Tiger Woods Foundation (scholarships and summer camps) and countless local junior golf programs. These are all well-intentioned, but based on the numbers, none seem to actually be working to stem the rising tide of non-golfing citizens.

Maybe profit is the answer.

?Having worked for Rick Smith at Treetops [a perennial candidate for one of the best teachers in the world and his home resort in Michigan] and having been a teaching pro, I?ve seen every ?growing the game? initiative in the past 20 years, and none of them have worked. This one immediately caught my eye because it makes so much sense,? said former PGA professional Kevin Frisch, now a spokesman for the program he describes, TGA Premier Junior Golf, a fast growing franchise.

The TGA stands for Teach, Grow, Achieve, the grow part being the game of golf. The concept was launched by Joshua Jacobs in 2003, when he had the bright idea to cross the declining notion of teaching golf to kids with the fast growing and red hot trend of after school enrichment programs. These have been booming across the country as a way to productively fill time between the end of the school day and the end of the parents? work day, while teaching the kids something beyond the classroom. To date, the main areas of focus have been academic or cultural, such as performing arts. So why not golf?

Why not is right. A TGA Premier Junior Golf program convinces schools in its area to add a golf option to the slate of afternoon enrichment programs, and parents pay a fee for it, but it is quite inexpensive compared with traditional hourly lessons, country club memberships or golf camps. In many cases the parents have never played golf themselves, which is just one thing that dramatically sets this model apart historically form the way most kids have come into the game. Jacobs started with six Los Angeles area schools and the program was so successful he decided to franchise it. He hired both education PhDs and accredited golf pros to build a standardized curriculum, creating five levels of experience and progressing from Kindergarten through eighth grade. He based the instruction on the ?almost golf ball,? a popular backyard trainer that feels like a real golf ball at impact, spins and flies like a real golf ball, but has much more limited flight, distance, and impact potential. This has allowed TGA to teach golf in school gyms, playgrounds, cafeterias and even hallways, eliminating one of the biggest expenses and hassles for kids learning golf: range time. Eventually the kids do make it out to the course which is sort of the whole point, and TGA owners partner with local courses (many of whom are badly hurting for business) to make this step affordable.

Course management is hugely important in golf - it's never too early to learn that! Photo: TGA Premier Golf

There are currently over 50 franchises in 25 states and the first international one just opened in Spain. In every case, it is the after school model that brings the possibility of golf to a huge population who never had an offer or opportunity to try it before. They can participate for years with coaching and very little expense, which tackles the learning curve part of the problem. According to TGA they now have 180,000 kids a year going through the afterschool programs, not counting the 635 summer camps owners put on nationwide. Entrepreneur Magazine ranked it as one of the country?s 100 Best Franchise Values, but that?s mainly of interest to would-be owners. To me what matters is that Jacobs? approach seems to be working, and working so well that the PGA of America named him to its Golf 2.0 board. Despite its participation in First Tee, the PGA of America has been eagerly looking at other ways to grow golf among the young and Golf 2.0?s purpose is to develop a long term, targeted strategic plan to increase the current number of golfers dramatically ? the goal is a 50% increase by 2020.

The PGA of America is not the only sports body impressed by the TGA Premier Junior Golf concept. The United States Tennis Association, which oversees another struggling sport, immediately grasped the potential and partnered with Jacobs to launch an entirely new program, TGA Premier Youth Tennis. TGA is the the USTA?s official partner, aimed at the ten and under crowd. He similarly developed a teaching curriculum for tennis, including smaller racquets and limited flight balls, with special portable nets that can be played on one side (half) of a regulation tennis court (or a school gym), more commensurate with kids? physical abilities. Many franchisees now teach both sports, and the company goes by TGA Premier Golf & Tennis.

A?more formal alliance with The PGA of America and other golf entities could help golf ? and the great game desperately needs the help. To me the bottom line is that individuals motivated by profit are more likely to work harder at creating demand for golf instruction than those looking to give away golf instruction. By working harder at it I think they are more likely to succeed and create this demand, and from a far broader demographic spectrum of kids, both economically and geographically. It?s easy to get underprivileged kids out to the range for a photo op with a star player who gives them a lesson and then leaves them with no way to move forward. The long term nature of this program ? almost a decade?s worth ? ensures that kids are not simply introduced to the game, tantalized and then abandoned.

I have no vested interest whatsoever in the success of TGA or its franchises, but I do have a deep interest in the future of golf, and like Golf 2.0, I?d like nothing better than to see a dramatic increase in the number of new players in the rest of this decade.

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Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/larryolmsted/2013/01/30/can-golf-be-saved-by-capitalism/

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