The Week That Was, july 21, 2013

     As promised, Darius Hatami of HVS Golf Services has published “The Path to Growth,” a collection of ideas that are supposed to help the golf industry steer itself back into the financial fast lane. Truth be told, though, Hatami sounds like someone who’s still searching for answers, not like someone who’s found them. At least in the short term, he suspects, our industry’s true growth markets will be in foreign nations. To grow the game in the United States, he believes, we must devise ways to attract the nearly 92 percent of the population that currently doesn’t golf. Inevitably, however, such a path leads us in the direction of kids, women, and minorities, groups that have historically resisted golf’s advances. “A catalyst is definitely needed to reform the thought process of what golf is and what it can be,” Hatami concludes. Unfortunately, he doesn’t identify what the catalyst might be. He suggests that golf needs to find its version of snowboarding, the youthful pursuit that’s enabled the ski industry to shake off its winters of discontent. But he also understands that golf, a business that “needs to simultaneously embrace its tradition while also embracing the future,” doesn’t trust the demographics that might ultimately save it. “The Path to Growth” is a road we’ve been down before and, regrettably, it’s always led to a dead end.

     Despite an economic crash that ravaged golf economies across the planet, between 2006 and 2012 Europe’s golf clubs increased their membership by more than 7 percent, from 4.1 million to 4.4 million. That’s probably the most surprising fact that can be found “The Economic Impact of Golf on the Economy of Europe,” a new study by Sports Marketing Surveys. Here are three others worth noting: One, there are more golfers in Great Britain and Ireland (4.2 million) than in the rest of Europe’s nations combined (3.65 million). Two, of the 4.2 million golfers in Great Britian and Ireland, 32 percent (1.36 million) are members of golf clubs and 38 percent (1.6 million) play at least 12 rounds a year. And finally, golf is worth £12.9 billion ($19.7 billion) to Europe’s economy, an amount that’s nearly £300 million ($458 million) less than it was in 2006.

     For the second time this year, former Olympic star Bob Richards has bought a golf property in Waco, Texas. In January, the 87-year-old pole-vaulting champion paid $1.4 million for Lake Waco Golf Club. Now, for slightly less money, he’s acquired Twin Rivers Golf Club, the home of Baylor University’s men’s and women’s golf teams. Twin Rivers opened in 2001, as Bear Ridge Golf Club, and was foreclosed upon in 2007. It cost its original owners $7.5 million, according to the Waco Tribune, but Richards picked it up for only $1.1 million. The club’s 12-year-old, Peter Jacobson-designed course is said to have flooding problems, but Richards thinks his primary challenge will be to attract new members. He aims to boost Twin Rivers’ number, which has been stuck on about 50 for years, to 225.

     The city of Longview, Washington is seeking an operator for Mint Valley Golf Course. The facility, which opened in 1976, features an 18-hole, Ron Fream-designed golf course and a six-hole, par-3 track. Rounds and revenues have declined in recent years, partly as a result of economic hard times and partly due to deferred maintenance. (Various upgrades, including a new irrigation system, are planned.) Also, the complex’s greens fees haven’t been increased since 2010. The city is offering a five-year contract that begins in January 2014. It’ll oversee the course maintenance while the new operator does the rest.

     After the 2014 World Cup is decided and the 2016 Olympics have ended, what does the future hold for one of Brazil’s favorite vacation spots? Renato Fernandes, the secretary of state for tourism in Rio Grande do Norte, feels his state will sparkle in the afterglow of the world’s biggest sports events. The state’s beaches already lure legions of Brazilian travelers, and, with a new international airport set to open next year, Fernandes is trying to enlist the private sector to build more tourist-friendly attractions, among them marinas, theme parks, and a half-dozen or more golf courses. “I think tourism is going to transform this state,” he believes. In a press statement, Fernandes noted that “analysis was underway for the creation of a world-class golf course,” but he didn’t identify it by name.

     The original version of the preceding post first appeared in the May 2013 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.

     There were times when it seemed as though it might never happen, but Billy Casper Golf has helped a homeowners’ group in Bastrop, Texas reopen its golf course. ColoVista Country Club, which had been overgrown with eight-foot weeds and scorched by fire, had been closed for more than three years before the home owners engaged BCG to revive it. “Billy Casper Golf has a wonderful vision about what ColoVista can be,” Carson Stephens, the president of ColoVista Golf Club Property Owners Association, said in a press release. “Together, we will build an excellent golf and lifestyle experience.” The 16-year-old layout may never again be what it used to be -- it had once been ranked among the state’s top tracks -- but right now that really doesn’t matter to ColoVista’s residents. “This community has been separated since the course closed,” one of them told the Austin Statesman. “Now we all have somewhere to come and be together.”

     If golf is snooty, uptight, tradition-bound, and reserved for the privileged elite, who’s to blame? Alex Stevenson thinks he has an answer: The British middle class. “Golf is one of the least democratic sports around,” he argues in an essay posted at Yahoo! News. “And it is the English middle class which has ruined it.” By “ruined it,” Stevenson means that social strivers took a fundamentally egalitarian sport, one created by farmers and laborers, and locked it away behind the doors of high-priced private clubs. Before long, golf became a weapon of class warfare. And today, he contends, “The chief preoccupation of those in power in the nation's golf clubs is keeping the hoi polloi away from their carefully cultivated greens.” As anyone who’s ever spent a few hours in an uppity club knows, there’s some truth in what Stevenson has to say. But in nations all over the world, golf is played on courses that welcome the hoi polloi. Are those venues part of the class struggle as well?

     John Deere has come up with a novel way to introduce kids to the golf business. The Moline, Illinois-based company is funding educational sessions about golf agronomy and maintenance at First Tee programs in suburban Chicago, Boston, and Atlanta. Two teenagers from each First Tee group will get a chance to “shadow” a superintendent as he (or she) prepares his venue for a PGA Tour event. You may remember that Deere made a $1 million contribution to the First Tee earlier this year. Part of the money is being used to pay for “Careers on Course,” which will expand to other First Tee chapters next year.

     When he isn’t aggravating Rory McIlroy, Nick Faldo is going to serve as a pitch man for MasterCard. Part of the job apparently involves giving golf lessons and posing for photographs. Faldo becomes the eighth golf pro on MasterCard’s sales team, joining Tom Watson, Ian Poulter, Graeme McDowell, and others, and the company’s top marketing official called his signing “a crown jewel in our campaign.” Which is nice, but not quite priceless.