"It needs to be cooler for young people, and more accessible for children, to become a truly multi-generational game”

BBC News' Bill Wilson looks at the tepid state of the international golf industry and it gives analysts an opportunity to talk inventory, capacity and over-leveraging. Thanks to reader penneraj for this, which includes a portion about the United States:

"Golf in the US has also been hit by the economic downturn, and before then it was not growing," says Mr Alexander, who is also a member of the Golf Writers Association of America.

"It is a fully saturated market and there is unused capacity on golf courses, where there has been overbuilding.

He said in terms of basic household economics, golf has also been hit.

"Golf is expensive, hard to learn, and cannot be played unsupervised by children in the US," adds Mr Alexander.

He also said that whereas a soccer ball would set a family back about $12, a full set of golf clubs costs thousands of dollars.

"In addition, the US consumer was over-leveraged coming out of 2007, and discretionary spending was cut back by households when economic trouble hit."