"Golf is their passion, it's what they do, it's central to their lives"

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A couple of points from John Paul Newport's Saturday WSJ column on the possible parallels between the 1929 market crash and today.

For golf, the 1920s were a Golden Age, headlined by a boom in new courses and the hero-worship of Bobby Jones. The 1990s into the early 2000s has often been called golf's second Golden Age, epitomized by another explosion of new courses and the glamour of Tiger Woods. Most golf histories depict the 1930s as a bleak and uneventful period: Mr. Jones retired from competition in 1930 after winning the Grand Slam, and golf clubs by the hundreds were boarded up. But the era actually was transformative, says Rand Jerris, director of the U.S. Golf Association Museum in New Jersey.

"This was the period during which golf became acceptable to a much wider range of people," he says. Many of those defunct private clubs reopened as public ones. The Works Progress Administration built more than 100 new golf courses nationwide, opening up the game to thousands. Women, forced by circumstances to work outside the home, took up the game in unprecedented numbers. And the professional tour, though it struggled financially, began to establish itself in the public imagination as charismatic pros like Walter Hagen and Byron Nelson stole the limelight from the blue-blood amateurs, like Mr. Jones, who had dominated golf until then. When golf blossomed again after World War II, it was a different game.

But if you were thinking there's no room to grow, I suppose there is merit in these numbers. Still, it'd be nice for golf to use this slump to address a few weaknesses (as Newport notes later on in the column):

Golf through the last few downturns has fared relatively well. "It isn't recession proof, but neither does it have those 20% or 30% peaks and valleys that some other industries have," says Tom Stine, a co-founder of Golf Datatech, a leading industry statistic-keeper. Golf rounds played this year were down 1.4% through September, the latest month for which data are available, and retail spending on equipment was down 3.4%, according to Golf Datatech. "That's down, but it's not that bad," Mr. Stine said.

The game's resistance to economic swings is rooted in the avidity of its core players, who number (depending on the definition applied) from eight million to 12 million, out of 29.5 million U.S. golfers total, according to the National Golf Foundation. "Golf is their passion, it's what they do, it's central to their lives," Mr. Stine says. They don't stop playing.

"Bankruptcy is another matter, however."

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Steve Elling makes a case for why it'll be hard for companies to justify spending government bailout money on PGA Tour sponsorships.

But even more interesting was this item, which may punch a hole in the PGA Tour's "ironclad" contract status and gloating.

Six automakers sponsor events on the PGA Tour, including two by Buick, which is hemorrhaging money so quickly, it might not make it to the end of the year. Bankruptcy is an increasingly likely scenario, according to the automaker, which could and should jeopardize the two Buick stops on the '09 tour calendar.

Understand that when the tour signs a deal with a title sponsor, it is written in blood. Just because Wachovia and Buick are in hot water doesn't mean the tour contracts are void or that financial details will be changed. The suits at tour headquarters play hardball. Tournaments must buy their way out of deals if they wish to escape before the contract term runs its course.

Bankruptcy is another matter, however.

"That would really be the one scenario where we would consider (voiding a contract)," tour communications chief Ty Votaw said two weeks ago at the Ginn sur Mer Classic, an event that is on life support because of the swan-diving real-estate market. "And if that was to transpire, we'd be standing there in line along with all the other creditors." 

Loch Lomond Up For Sale**

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The credit crunch forces Lyle Anderson's hand...

Its 700-strong membership is thought to include no more than 100 UK members, each paying fees of up to £40,000.

In a letter to members, Mr Anderson said: "I am confident the bank shares my view that Loch Lomond Golf Club is one of a kind in the world.

"I have explored many alternatives, including restructured loan arrangements and potential sources and terms for additional equity.

"Regrettably, I have been unable to conclude arrangements for a restructured credit facility with the Bank and have been unable to raise new equity or debt."

He wrote that plans to take "a co-operative approach with the bank" to avoid disruption at the club and said he had agreed to "facilitate change of ownership at the appropriate time".

Mr Anderson added that he is pursuing his own "vigorous independent search for new equity or debt funding for the communities and clubs."

"Ultimately, he said, charities might receive less financial support throughout golf."

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John Davis does a nice job assessing the state of pro tour events in Arizona in light of the economy, and while the news is pretty good, there is this one comment from Tom Maletis, president of Tournament Golf Foundation, Inc., which owns the Valley's LPGA event about who will take the biggest hit:

Ultimately, he said, charities might receive less financial support throughout golf.

"Tournaments typically tighten their belts anyway so they can give more to charity," Maletis said, "but now we will have to look at things in a different light because there are only so many apples in the box."

"One reason why the Ryder and Solheim Cups are so eagerly awaited is that both are breaks from the mind-numbing tedium that is yet another 72-hole stroke-play event."

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With Seve on his mind and in his heart, John Huggan files his typically impassioned plea for a return of shotmaking. Though I think he was kind to the tours with this statement:

Of course, the unspoken realisation that card-and-pencil golf is inherently dull – stroke play only becomes watchable when it is magically transformed into match play on Sunday afternoons – is the biggest motivation behind the so-far failed Fed-Ex Cup series and the European Tour's new-fangled 'Race for Dubai' that will start in China next month.
And...
And while the thoughts of golfers the world over are with Ballesteros as he lies in a Madrid hospital following surgery to remove a brain tumour, the most exciting golfer in living memory is just one who has expressed fears for the future of the game he loves.

"I see good swings and good players," said Seve. "But nothing that really keeps me watching television for a long time.

"Everybody has been equalised by the new clubs, the long putter, more loft on wedges. Something has to be done with the rules, otherwise golf will become more power than anything else."

He is right, of course. Until some imagination and flair is consistently injected into the presentation of the golf courses used for professional events – the recent Ryder Cup at Valhalla was a perfect example of how even a mediocre course set up properly can allow top players at least a chance to express themselves – then we are doomed to watch even the most creative individuals hacking out of long grass that exists only because of the aforementioned ball.

"Golf's symbolic legacy as an indulgence for the wealthy appears to have come back into play."

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Mark Frost fills in for John Paul Newport's WSJ column spot and pens a compelling look at the evolution of golf and senses that the sport really hasn't figured out what made Scots start playing in the first place.

Then came Tiger, the next avatar. He swept away most of the last vestiges of "restriction." Golf was big business now, and money streamed in from flush and eager corporate partners. High-end daily-fee courses cropped up like weeds, offering amenities that had remained out of most players' reach. The trend culminated in the appearance of a new breed of private club that catered to the super rich -- and charged accordingly; membership as conspicuous status symbol -- that would have shocked the Old Money aristocrats of the early USGA.

Most of the money for those courses and their membership fees flowed from superheated Wall Street spigots; then greed, hubris and the stubborn human inability to see danger coming from a distance led to September 2008. Amid the economic wreckage of all this steroidal excess, the future of golf's high-flying recent past seems at best uncertain. The grand old clubs, built on sustaining cultures rooted deep in their communities, will weather any storm, but many of those daily-fee courses had already gone under; and the survivors face hard times.

Corporations will no longer have the same discretionary funds to express their affection for golf. The image of the game itself has taken a hit from these cautionary tales of executive excess. The number of amateur golfers has flat-lined and with an injured Tiger on the sidelines, so have TV ratings. A path forward can be found in the recent victory of the U.S. Ryder Cup team; a group of untested kids and seasoned veterans putting their egos aside, and playing their guts out for nothing but pride. Captain Paul Azinger borrowed a page from the Scots, who still play golf the way they've always done on their local, minimal masterpiece tracks. Their game, taken to heart, teaches discipline, equilibrium, modesty, moral rectitude and the lesson that any player forgets at their peril: Golf, like life, is a humbling game.

"With ball technology still unpoliced, one certain victim will be the par 5."

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I've been giving some thought to Ron Whitten's story on the future of architecture and one of his more optimistic visions sees the par-5 disappearing from the game:

So where is golf architecture headed? Our prediction is that in the next 20 years, new courses will be wider, drier and probably scruffy around the edges. They'll feature a lot of steep, deep hazards and dramatic slopes, will be more eclectic in their bunkering and green complexes and be positively dizzying in their strategies of play.
They'll still be mostly 18 holes, but the standard of par will drop from 72 to 69. With ball technology still unpoliced, one certain victim will be the par 5. Par 4s now play as long as par 5s used to. Even the glorious 12th at Stonebrae will probably be rendered into a drive and pitch shot by some Nationwide players next March.
To be genuine three-shot holes, new par 5s would have to be 700 yards or more. It'll be impossible to have four of those on any new course, because they'd take up too much precious land and drag each round into a sixth hour. A single par 5 will suffice. The others will be called what they now really are, long par 4s.

First, it's nice to see Ron's optimistic about governing body regulation of the ball. Can't say he's off base with that one!

But do you think he's right that the par-5 is doomed and is this a good or bad thing?

Obviously I agree with the merits of sub-par 70 courses because they take less time and the game needs to downsize the amount of acreage it uses. And he is also right that it'll take 700 yards to make a true three shotter, but really, how many of those are that interesting to play?

However, wouldn't we be losing one of the great treats in the game: the reachable par-5? When the elements are in balance, is there any more exciting or interesting shot than the decision to go for a par-5 in two?

"Who in their right mind would invest $50,000 in an organization that changes its CEO every year?"

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No one every accused me of timeliness, but I finally got around to my October Golf Digest and their special money section. Each story had excellent points and you can access all of them here if you are behind on your reading like me. But considering yesterday's news from Winged Foot and the interesting state of club life in America in light of the financial crisis, each story has relevance, none moreso than this excerpt from Chris Millard's story was most entertaining, particularly this anecdote.

Fred Laughlin, who has long consulted with nonprofit groups on management issues, has recently begun working with the Club Managers Association of America on governance modeling for private clubs. His initial impressions of American private-club management and governance were not good. "Just awful," he says. "Mired barely in the 20th century." (See accompanying story by Davis Sezna.) How did we get here? Many of these clubs started because founders wanted to get together with friends. After a while the founders turned over management to boards, which in turn appointed presidents, who eventually hired GMs. "This happened over decades," says Laughlin. "Now we've got to a point where people are asking, 'Who's in charge?' "

It doesn't take a CFO to realize that there's something unsustainable about a 90,000-square-foot clubhouse in an age of dwindling enrollments. "A club needs to be run like a business," says Laughlin, adding that the top private clubs would rank among the top-10 percent of all businesses in the United States. Business-like thinking should extend, he says, to governance. "Who in their right mind would invest $50,000 in an organization that changes its CEO every year? Yet that's exactly what these members are doing and what these clubs are asking them to do."

"The restrictions on square grooves will bring back the old days"

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Ron Whitten covers a lot of ground in his "Shape of Courses to Come" feature in the November, 2008 Golf Digest.

I think this passage speaks to the rude awakening some of the folks at the USGA are in for:

Steve Smyers, a veteran architect and member of the Executive Committee of the USGA, believes new restrictions on square grooves in golf clubs, set to go into effect at pro tour events in 2010 and apply to all by 2024, will affect course architecture in positive ways, particularly for those designing courses intended to host championships. (And because most owners dream of owning a contender, that means most new courses.)
"The restrictions on square grooves will bring back the old days," Smyers says. "Elite players will be gearing back on their swings, and going back to golf balls that spin a little more, which will reduce their distance. I've always been an advocate of big, wide fairways, but I think fairways will get narrower. Light rough will again become an integral part of the game. Hitting the fairway will again become absolutely critical. It'll be position golf as opposed to power golf."
See, here's my question. How can you position yourself on a narrow fairway? Just a question!

And if someone can name one noted player who has said he will be gearing back his swing because of the new grooves, I'm offering a first edition, signed copy of Masters of the Links.

"But just a step lower, the market is vulnerable."

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The Wall Street Journal's John Paul Newport says the news isn't all bad for golf. There are still a lot of rich people!

In North America alone, there are more than 40,000 families with investable assets of $30 million or more, according to the CapGemini/Merrill Lynch World Wealth Report, and approximately 300,000 U.S. taxpayers with reported annual incomes greater than $1 million, according to the IRS. Among them are many golf nuts. To say nothing of the huddled masses of superrich abroad.
However...
New residential golf developments in the U.S. are few and far between, leading to a net standstill in golf-course openings generally. More courses closed than opened in both 2006 and 2007, according to the National Golf Foundation, a sharp contrast to the course-building boom that started in the 1990s.

Even top-drawer designers are feeling the pinch. "I've got quite a few projects in the U.S.," Mr. Nicklaus told me recently, "but they have all kind of slowed down or are on hold or are kind of waiting until the economy turns a little bit." Tom Doak, the celebrated designer of Pacific Dunes in Oregon and Cape Kidnappers in New Zealand, doesn't lack for work but in recent months has seen two of the courses he designed struggle: St. Andrews Beach in Australia is closed and for sale, and Beechtree in Maryland will shut down in December.

"The people I really worry about are the young designers and apprentices coming up, and the talented course superintendents and club pros who are suddenly out of a job," Mr. Doak said.
Now this is interesting...
For golfers still clinging to jobs, there is an upside. Less demand and more supply equals bargains. But even many seemingly successful clubs and golf communities aren't filled to capacity, which often means higher fees and assessments for members and, in some cases, extreme difficultly leaving without taking a bath.
Could this be the moment that private clubs in the U.S. start going semi-private like our friends in Scotland? Or will they go down in flames before taking a little outside play?

Meanwhile, there's still Tiger's project for the super wealthy, which prompted Newport's column. Now, those of us invited to the press conference launching Punta Brava were forbidden from asking personal life questions. Perhaps because he'd filled his quota for the month in this Today Show interview?

"We learned the market is not deep enough for fractional residences at that price point."

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In the new Golf World, Mike Cullity considers the plight of Hamilton Hall in St. Andrews.

Hamilton Hall's current state is a far cry from the vision promised by its owner, Wasserman Real Estate Capital LLC, a Providence, R.I., development firm that bought the building from St. Andrews University for £20 million (about $40 million) in 2006. A 40-year-old developer of retail, mixed-use and residential properties, the firm planned to transform the old dormitory into a luxury residence club called St. Andrews Grand that would open in mid-2008 and count Phil Mickelson among the members paying a seven-figure sum for a share in one of 23 lavishly appointed apartments.

But those plans have been abandoned, and as St. Andrews looks toward the Open's slated return to the Old Course in 2010, locals are speculating about Hamilton Hall's future and expressing concerns over its appearance. The public outcry is a prominent example of the conflict that has emerged in Scotland between local interests seeking to preserve the historic character of golf's birthplace and real-estate developers—including Donald Trump, who for two years has battled local officials over a plan to build a $2.1 billion golf resort along Scotland's northeast coast—looking for a piece of the country's lucrative golf tourism pie.

Aiming to attract wealthy travelers, St. Andrews Grand did not generate the interest Wasserman Real Estate Capital had hoped for, said David Wasserman, the firm's principal. "We had demand but not necessarily enough demand to carry the whole project through," he said. "We learned the market is not deep enough for fractional residences at that price point." 

Nice quote, but way too transparent.