The Week That Was, july 27, 2014

     In a move that’s certain to reverberate through the U.S. golf industry, Dick’s Sporting Goods has laid off 478 of the PGA pros who work in its stores. The chain, one of the nation’s major golf retailers, blamed the purge on declining sales and revenues in its golf division. Though Dick’s had often complimented itself for the service these pros offered to their customers, its labor force was, when financial push came to shove, expendable. Dick’s reportedly plans to reduce the amount of floor space its stores devote to golf and give more to athletic apparel, which presumably sells better. The chain is said to be the nation’s largest employer of golf professionals. It may still be, but not by as wide a margin.

     Can a loss of nearly 500 jobs for PGA pros ultimately benefit the U.S. golf industry? Ryan Ballengee thinks it can. “This right-sizing is a good thing,” he opines in a column for Golf News Net. The way Ballengee sees it, what happened at Dick’s was, from the corporation’s point of view, simply a failed sales experiment that won’t be repeated. And for those who lost their jobs, it was truly a blessing in disguise, because working at a big-box chain like Dick’s is a really lousy way to earn a living. “Relegating [the pros] to a sporting goods store may have meant a steady paycheck,” Ballengee writes, “but it was a dead-end job with little opportunity to evolve the profession.” The evolution of the profession is central to Ballengee’s thesis, and it involves craft beer, concerts, pools and tennis courts, and the transformation of golf courses into “lifestyle beacons” that will allow families to escape from “the hustle, bustle, and crowding of urban environments.” The logic is hard to follow, and Ballengee knows it, for he begins his argument by saying, “Here goes nothing.” Truer words are rarely written.

     Jim Koppenhaver of Pellucid Corporation has put the recent declines in golf’s player base into discomforting perspective. In an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek, Koppenhaver pointed out that the current count of U.S. golfers -- roughly 23 million -- is less than the number our nation had in 1990. And though it hardly needs to be mentioned, our nation hasn’t stopping growing. Since 1990, our population has increased by 27 percent. Another distressing factoid from Businessweek’s article: U.S. golfers played 462 million rounds last year, the fewest number since 1995.

     Drought or no drought, China’s capital city has a swanky new golf course. The 18-hole, Jack Nicklaus “signature” track is the centerpiece of Nicklaus Club Beijing, which is said to have “the most sought-after membership” in the metropolis. Such an achievement signals the power that the Nicklaus name continues to wield in the People’s Republic. When it was announced that Nicklaus would be redesigning and rebranding the financially ailing Citee Golf Club, memberships began selling like those proverbial hotcakes -- from 50 to 380 in less than two years, according to Nicklaus’ publicists -- and now a waiting list is looming on the near horizon. And the best news is, the club has been perfectly tailored to Beijing’s business elites, who’ll no doubt figure out how to keep their investment lush and green while the rest of the city dries to a crisp.

     Last week’s Open Championship attracted 202,917 spectators, more than 26,000 fewer than the event attracted the last time it was played at Royal Liverpool, in 2006. It’s likely, however, that the R&A, the event’s organizer, is looking on the bright side. Last year, when the championship was held at Muirfield, only 142,036 fans showed up.

     For $30,000 a year and 4 percent of the gross profits, Landmark Golf has agreed to manage a financially stressed municipal golf course in Indio, California. The company’s first order of business: To let golfers in the Coachella Valley know that the 18-hole, par-3 track exists. “Very few people know that it is there,” a Landmark official told the Desert Sun. “I told a couple of friends we have the contract now, and I had friends say, ‘There is no golf course in that area.’” At least in part, the anonymity explains why the property reportedly loses more than $300,000 a year. Landmark operates two other golf properties in the Golden State, Silver Rock Golf Resort in La Quinta and O’Donnell Golf Club in Palm Springs.

     To the surprise of absolutely no one, the good old boys in St. Andrew’s, Scotland have approved a new voting procedure to determine whether women should be allowed entry into the all-male Royal & Ancient Golf Club. Instead of limiting the vote to those who show up in the flesh at the club’s annual meeting, the members will be allowed to cast their ballots by snail mail. The results will be announced in September, on the same day that Scotland holds the referendum for its independence, presumably to ensure that the members don’t make front-page news.