talking points Feeling the Pinch

If the people at KPMG’s recent Golf Business Forum are to be believed, the golf business is going to face hard times for at least another year or two.

According to an electronic poll taken during the event’s opening session, 40 percent of the attendees said an economic turnaround won’t begin until 2011, and a whopping 44 percent don’t expect the hard times to end until 2012 or -– gulp -– later.

Those opinions were echoed by Giovanni Gregoratti, an investment banker for Citigroup, who opined during the event that golf “has been hit badly, and it may take longer than most industries to return to where it was.”