Vital Signs, march 18, 2016

     In the golf industry, down is now officially the new up. If this year’s Golf Industry Show truly saw “a rise in all measures,” as its sponsors and presenters claim, it’s only because they’re taking an extremely restrictive view of their situation. The 12,600 visitors who came through the turnstiles at the 2016 show may have constituted “a rise,” but it’s a measly 200-person rise over the number recorded at the 2015 show. And let’s not forget that the 2014 show attracted 14,147 attendees, or that the 2008 show attracted 25,737 attendees. If the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America and its partners really wanted to be honest with the rank and file in the golf industry, they’d admit that this year’s attendance was less than half of what it was in 2008. By trying so hard to sugar-coat reality, they’re leaving a sour taste in a lot of mouths.

     Don’t count on seeing many people of color at your local golf course anytime soon. In a recent interview with Golfweek, Steve Mona concedes that his diversify-the-game initiatives have made “not a lot of progress” in bringing African-Americans into the golf industry, either as players, employees, or suppliers. “The best way to describe it,” the CEO of the World Golf Foundation acknowledged, “is we are probably about where we were in 2009.” He added: “It’s kind of a mish-mash and basically stagnant since 2009, and that’s not good enough.” In addition, Mona notes that he’s advised employers to continue hiring the best-qualified applicants -- no special treatment for minorities -- but to “work harder to make sure you get people from diverse backgrounds into the pipeline.” Of course, the distance from the pipeline to the finish line can be considerable.

     In mid 2013, New Zealand’s tourism officials set out to double the number of international golf vacationers that the nation attracted -- to take it from 50,000 to 100,000. Their effort doesn’t appear to be paying off, because New Zealand lured only about 36,000 foreign golfers in 2015.

     These days the world is full of people worth $1 million or more, and over the next decade there are going to be a lot more of them. Citing data provided by a research firm called New World Wealth, Knight Frank’s Wealth Report 2016 counted more than 13.25 million millionaires last year, up from 8.73 million in 2005. Looking forward, by 2025 Knight Frank expects the number of millionaires to increase by 36 percent, to more than 18 million. Breaking it down by regions, the British real-estate consulting firm predicts that the number will grow by 72 percent in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States, by more than 50 percent in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, by 42 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean, by 30 percent or more in North America and Australasia, and by 26 percent in Europe. More specifically, Knight Frank predicts that 1.25 million new millionaires will be created in the United States, 490,500 in China, 253,500 in the United Kingdom, and 247,800 in India. As a group, Knight Frank and its partners estimate that the planet’s millionaires control net assets worth an estimated $66 trillion.