Some 40 percent of that total is a category called occasional golfers , who are age 6 and up who pl

Before travel agencies online I start, I want to talk about professional golf: the PGA, LPGA, Champions and Web.com tours. This is not golf as far as a participation issue. It s TV entertainment played by the most skilled golfers in the world. Take away TV and the purses would be peanuts with the PR folks desperately travel agencies online looking for sponsors.
As a percentage, professional golfers represent travel agencies online some 0.05-to-0.07 percent of all golfers, but if you read the golf magazines and listen to golf commentary and you might think that they  were  golf. No business model focuses travel agencies online on 0.05 percent of the market for decision making, yet the ruling bodies are greatly influenced by these stars and it s almost as if the other 99.95 percent of golfers don t count. Yes the pros are a factor in showing us the game at its highest level and yes they can be considered a positive influence. When you see the participation hard numbers, you will also see that while they re a factor they haven t moved the needle.
Add in the elite amateurs (another miniscule group: about 3.4 percent of golfers who play almost to a professional travel agencies online level) and we see more examples of an industry travel agencies online that focuses on the minority. Look up courses on the internet and you ll find language such as, Come play our 7200-yard, ultra-challenging course, etc.
Really, if all the amateurs in the U.S. who could actually play a 7200-yard course were to play golf at the same time, there would be still be tons of empty golf courses in this country. But I digress…
This segment is about a statistical evaluation of participation. My primary database is The National Golf Foundation (NGF). The NGF is sponsored by the various travel agencies online facets of the golf industry and produce a variety of studies on participation. I promised facts not opinions, but others besides me have accused the NGF of painting the numbers in the best possible light. I prefer to look at the data and state the obvious.
Some 40 percent of that total is a category called  occasional golfers , who are age 6 and up who play more than once per year. In 2000, they accounted for about 9.1 million golfers. In 2012, that number grew to 11.6 million golfers.
I like to focus on what the NGF calls  avid golfers , which are folks (age 6 and up) who play more than 25 times per year. In 2000, there were 10.2 million avid golfers, but that number dropped nearly 4 million to 6.4 million in 2012.
Why focus on avid golfers you might ask? Shouldn t the emphasis be on getting the members of the other categories to play more? In fact, if you look at the occasional category you ll see that it actually increased from 9.1 million in 2000 to 11.6 million in 2014. This would be an example of selective analysis, something for a cheerleader. I could point out this fact to the exclusion of all others. But when you look at the accumulated numbers, one thing is evident; there has been some success getting new players to the course, but it’s been overridden by the fact that they don’t continue playing.
I’m not going into the population factor in detail; over the years we had a significant increase as golf went up AND down. Today s Caucasian population rate of increase is down, so overall increases come from minorities who are not inclined toward golf as a group. I could turn this data alone into a very negative assessment, but let’s just say population isn’t a positive factor.
When I looked travel agencies online at the numbers in greater detail I learned that the avid category picked up the tab for some 71 percent of all golf-related expenses. So a modest increase in the avid category has greater impact travel agencies online than a more significant travel agencies online increase in the other two. If we add in the golfers who play more than eight rounds a year, we now have 94 percent of golf spending.
What about junior golf? What have all the industry sponsored programs achieved? It’s down 10 percent since 2000 and more than 20 percent since it peaked in 2005. That could be the subject of a study unto itself, but the bottom line is that it isn’t something of promise for the future. You can join the NGF for $125 a year if you want to peruse their data.
This will evoke a response travel agencies online from those who say I’m ignoring travel agencies online cost. Not at all; I’m just focused on optimizing value. More than 145 courses closed in 2013 and the vast majority had greens travel agencies online fees and carts under $40. Value first, cost will follow. There was very inexpensive tennis during its decline.
I understand the thinking behind all that, but with the overall travel agencies online objective of increasing participation travel agencies online I’ll stay focused; golf needs more avid players. We know who we want to get more involved in the game and we know why they are leaving. Let s give the plan for bringing them back a 100 percent focused effort. If it shows no progress after a credible time period then we can go off the reservation.
Barney Adams is the founder of Adams Golf and the inventor of the iconic "Tight Lies" fairway wood. He served as Chairman of the Board for Adams until 2012, when the company was purchased by TaylorMade-Adidas.
Adams is one of golf's most distinguished entrepreneurs, receiving honors such as Manufacturing Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst Young in 1999 and the 2010 Ernie Sabayrac Award for lifetime contribution to the golf industry by the PGA of America. His journey in the golf industry started travel agencies online as as a club fitter, however, and has the epoxy filled travel agencies online shirts as a testimony to his days as an assembler.
Adams is now retired from the golf equipment industry, but his passion for the game endures through his writing. He is the author of "The WOW Factor," a book published in 2008 that offers an insider's view of the golf industry and business advice to entrepreneurs, and he continues to contribute articles to outlets travel agencies online like GolfWRX that offer his solutions to grow the game of golf.
How about blowing up the P.G.A? A bunch of bloated, arrogant, wanna be s that have such an air about them that handing your hard earned money to them is off-putting to say the least. As a group they love to trash people behind their back. The swings on the first tee, the clothing, the outdated equipment, etc. The game is still predominately a white elitist sport and the only people the P.G.A. tries to invigorate are the deep pocketed demographic mentioned. Why don t private courses donate old member equipment to public joints for cost free loaners? Why does the P.G.A. not come out and say publicly that if a guy who plays four times a year really shouldn t worry about playing travel agencies online by a strict set of rules? These people want to drink a couple beers and mess with their buddies. Who gives a shit if he doesn t mull through his five options for proceeding from a lateral hazard nd ten minutes later finally pull the trigger. Bifurcation travel agencies online anyone? Hell yes, but that s a story for another day. I digress. Having been on the non-professional side of the golf business travel agencies online (caddie master) for 15 years I have seen too many of these prima donna s troll the clubhouses and practice tees with a rotten air and elevated opinion of themselves while seldom offering genuine words of encouragement to 30 handicappers. For the sake of this game someone please tell these guys that they are there to protect and serve the game not to act like they ve conquered it.
One thing that I find interesting in all the grow the game and players are leaving the game stories is the absence of recognition that, quite simply, Golf is a very difficult game. Unlike many sports that can be picked up and played with some degree of success (often with no equipment, training, coaching, or significant skill), Golf is the hardest game out there. You ll never hear the USGA, or PGA, or state golf associations come out and say Yep, Golf is one of the most difficult games ever , that would be rather counter productive really.
In all honesty, as an avid golfer who has tried to bring quite a few people to the game, the primary thing that kept these prospective players from sticking with it, was the difficulty. For avid golfers, who have made it past those initial frustrating travel agencies online hurdles, (a process that can take years) we ve learned to love and thrive on the difficulty. But for many, whiffed shots, 1st tee stress, chunked wedges, 4 swings to get out of a bunker, 6 balls in the water, 4 putts, etc. is more embarrassing struggle travel agencies online than homage paid to the patron saints of Golf. Golf has always been difficult, is still difficult and will always be difficult, and that s as it should be, it s one of the things that makes golf so amazing. Not even 15 cups will help, if it takes 7 shots to get to the green. And I ve seen plenty of players take 7 shots to get to a 300 yard par four green!
Comments on Barney s Op/Ed are self-selecting. GolfWRX site visitors would likely be avid golfers. The many who commented on July 3rd (a workday) would be either independently wealthy, retired, or unemployed none of these subgroups representative of mainstream consumers.
To be sure, Barney points to the importance of (and need to focus on) avid golfers rather than on the populace as a whole. travel agencies online Makes sense if there is, in fact, room for an increase in the number of times avid golfers play per year. If an avid golfer is one who plays more than 25 times per year , you d have to consider whether that s an average or a median figure. You d have to wonder how many avid golfers already play as often as they can so that it wouldn t be possible for them to play much more (due to time and cost constraints).
I m an avid golfer. I probably log 45 rounds a year. What keeps me from playing more often is (1) other commitments (so time ) and (2) cost. I m spending too much time and too much money playing golf. I won t be able to sustain this. Part of the time expenditure is combing the web finding the lowest cost at which I can play a decent course. I simply can t spend upwards of $45 a round 40 times per year. And neither can my golf buddies. And I can t afford to have others mow and do gardening, home repairs and maintenance, wash my car, clean my house, and run my errands. I