Golf 20/20 Hopes To Grow Number Of American Golfers To 30 Million

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For stakeholders and those with an interest in various golf initiatives, check out Adam Schupak's lively give and take with Golf 20/20 honcho Steve Mona who reports a goal of increasing participation from 25.7 million to 30 million by the end of 2017.

They'll be doing it by backing just five initiatives, all no doubt with some glossy ad campaigns...

Q: One could argue it’s a mistake to only support industry-led initiatives. Aren’t these the same organizations that failed to grow the game since Golf 20/20 was created in 2000?

It doesn’t mean the other initiatives going on aren’t worthy initiatives. I can name a whole bunch, and they still will be supported. You look at a program like The First Tee that went from zero in 1997 to today more than 200 chapters and reached somewhere in the order of 6 million young people. We have a goal to reach an additional 10 million in the next five years. I would say that program has been successful from the standpoint of reaching young people, as an example. Get Golf Ready in 2012 reached 76,000 students, 80 percent of which have stayed in the game, spending incrementally another $1,000 in the game so I wouldn’t say that’s been unsuccessful.

Q: Yet the number of youth golfers (based on NGF data) has declined. The First Tee may have touched a lot of kids, but the NGF numbers don’t match up, do they?

Yes, the youth category has declined, but I think you have to look at broader, more societal issues rather than just say that youth golf is smaller today than it was five years ago it was The First Tee’s fault.

But one of the issues to that point, one of the problems we see with our sport is it doesn’t lend itself to a team sport environment. That’s why we’re getting behind PGA Junior League Golf. It creates that kind of team environment.

Viewing Alert: Grey Goose 19th Hole From The Players

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I'll be on this week's special Wednesday edition with John Feinstein and David Fay...for da full hour.

Should be a lively discussion covering the many interesting issues in the game, including the continuing buzz over the Tiger drop, Vijay's non-sentence, anchoring and much more.

The show airs Wednesday at 6 pm ET/3 pm PT and replays at 1 am/10 pm PT.

"If golf were invented today, it would be a nine-hole game."

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Bill Pennington does a nice job in this New York Times piece explaining the nine-hole initiative launched by Golf Digest with today's release of the June issue and supported by the USGA and PGA of America.

There is no doubt that the push to promote nine-hole rounds reflects a reality that most of us now work longer hours and have more demands on our weekend recreational time. As Tarde said: “Every other recreation, it seems, takes more or less two hours: movies, dinner, cocktail parties, tennis, bowling, going to the gym. If golf were invented today, it would be a nine-hole game.”

Lepp's "Saucer Shot" Will Not Be Growing The Game

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Thanks to reader Ian for Brad Ziemer's story on James Lepp of Big Break fame (I wouldn't know, under doctor's order not to watch) learning from Golf Canada's Dale Jackson that the saucer shot he featured on the show (still don't know, still under doctor's order) has been ruled illegal by the USGA/R&A joint rules committee.

“The rule that would be breached is Rule 14-1 that says in part the club can’t be pushed, spooned and scraped,” Jackson said. “Pushed and spooned don’t apply here, but scraped here basically means you are intentionally dragging or pulling the club along the ground before it hits the ball, which is what he does.”

Lepp’s saucer shot is a hybrid of sorts, part hockey snap shot and part golf chip shot. Lepp, a former NCAA champion and multiple B.C. Amateur and Canadian Tour winner, came up with the shot to combat the occasional yips he was suffering when chipping off tight lies near the green.

He used it with considerable success on last fall’s Big Break series on Golf Channel and Lepp has videos of the shot posted on his website for Kikkor Golf, the shoe and apparel company he owns and operates.

Can't wait for the first cries that this, too, will be stifling massive growth of the game after Commissioner Finchem reveals that nearly 20% of golfers use the saucer to combat yips.

The Vancouver Sun posted Lepp's demo video.

"People take the game too seriously"

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John Paul Newport profiles Arnold Thiesfelt, a retired ad exec, who has a book out about the wild and crazy Time Inc. days when the expense account was more liberal and yes, the golf ball didn't go so far!

To hear Arnold Thiesfeldt tell it, golf has changed a lot in the last 50 years, and not much for the better. Courses are too difficult. The ball goes too far. Costs are out of hand. "People take the game too seriously," he said. "The camaraderie isn't what it used to be."

Even better are his stories about spending to help Time Inc. sell a few more ads...

As late as 1997, Sports Illustrated paid big money for 20 VIP seats for clients to travel on the Concorde to Spain with the U.S. Ryder Cup team for the matches at Valderrama.

Selling was more collaborative 40 years ago. The ad agencies had big staffs with which the magazine guys worked to develop plans and marketing gimmicks. Nowadays, companies use "more of a math equation," a former executive said. Changes in the tax code, tighter federal regulations on entertainment practices and the overall decline in print-ad sales have also had an effect.

AJGA Taking A Stand At 4:19

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Great stuff from the AJGA magazine on their quest to make time par 4:19 this year and quotes from some of their players and official Benny Kuroshima explaining how it'll be done and what the kids will do with the extra hour should time par be met.

There is also this YouTube video of AJGA grads like Jordan Spieth talking about how slow things got after they left the junior tour.



Should We Be Rushing 14-Year-Old's To The Big Stage?

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At the suggestion it was a bit much to be putting a 14-year-old on a stage like the Masters, yours truly has been met with shock for not being on board with golf joining the youth obsession that has never served anyone well, particularly athletes.

Thankfully, in this weekend's WSJ column, John Paul Newport looks at Tianlang Guan (playing this week in New Orleans) and quietly suggests that success at 14 is not a guarantee of success.

The road from success at 14 years old to adult stardom is long and disjointed. "Golf is so different from other sports because careers are so long," said Pia Nilsson, who has coached Annika Sorenstam, Suzann Pettersen and Ai Miyazato, among others. "Very often the boys and girls who are good at an early age are not the ones who are good later on."

In sports like gymnastics, diving and ice skating, motivated youngsters with an extensive coaching and support system peak in their teens. Then they're done. But before golf prodigies reach their prime, at the earliest in their 20s and more often in their 30s, a lot of life intervenes.

"Of course, you can learn to get very good at a young age. We see that more and more, especially in Asia, where very young boys and girls are practicing harder and harder," Nilsson said. "But being the best golfer you can possibly be requires long-term thinking and an understanding that we are human beings and we have to grow up."