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April 22, 2014Salazar’s struggles and more …While We’re Waiting
April 23, 2014I talked about my relationship with the game of golf this morning and how I quit and didn’t miss it. I also talked about how I would like to get out there and try some foot golf which involves melding golf and soccer. Now, I’m reading a story about how some courses are considering steps to get more casual golfers interested in the game. Most significantly, it appears some courses are trying out golf holes that are about the size of a pizza.
Golf has always reveled in its standards and rich tradition. But increasingly a victim of its own image and hidebound ways, golf has lost five million players in the last decade, according to the National Golf Foundation, with 20 percent of the existing 25 million golfers apt to quit in the next few years.
People under 35 have especially spurned the game, saying it takes too long to play, is too difficult to learn and has too many tiresome rules.
I know it’s a gimmick and the traditionalists would hate it, but I think it would be a lot of fun. Just like moving the fences in for baseball increased homers, imagine how many chip-ins casual golfers could get with giant holes? Sure, it would render many traditional handicaps meaningless, but I can’t imagine a lot of serious country clubs would take this thing on anyway.
But seriously, for beer leagues? This sounds awesome. Ultimately, I wasn’t enjoying golf anymore because it did take a long time. It wasn’t really relaxing. I felt like I had better things to do. I was roundly mocked by the serious golfers when I would say that I preferred playing nine holes.
So you tell me. Do you like the idea of changing the game? Would it get you to play more rounds? Would it bring any of you fellow quitters back into the fold?
52 Comments
My driver is the least-used club in my bag by a country mile. Been terrible with it since I first started playing 20+ years ago.
Great idea. Next, let’s take the hitting–especially by the defense–out of football (oh, wait…), lower the rims to 8 feet in basketball, bring the outfield walls in to about 200 feet in every baseball stadium (actually, we may have already started that one, too…), require bumpers for all bowling alleys, widen the pockets on the billiards table, double the diameter of dart boards and the holes in our corn hole boards, allow hands for field players in soccer (Luis Suarez is already on board) while widening the goals by, what, 50%? Wider goals and no skating or hitting in hockey as well. Have we made everything easy enough so that everyone is awesome and elite and gets a trophy? Did I miss anything?
Kids these days…