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I am not sure I buy the too slow thing, American Football is an hour game that can go on for three hours with only 11 minutes of play and it does fine.
I think a lot of it is America isn't interested if their stars arent number one, it is getting more expensive to play too.
Golf's decline is good news for America. Even though they appear green and healthy, golf courses are terribly polluting and require too much water.
And as an athletic/fitness passtime, it doesn't cut it. You could play 18 holes without a cart and still need an aerobic workout afterwards. As fitness, it is only good for the elderly.
And if your kid's favorite sport is golf, he's spending alot of time alone, lost in his own head concentrating on hitting a ball. In team sports (don't tell me golf is a team sport), kids get to socialize, play together, fit into a team while adopting what could be a life of fitness. And they are challenged by a host of disparate things and people. The challenge in golf is on the swing, little else.
The question is all wrong. America was never in love with golf, only the upper classes were. The middle and lower classes never bothered with the sport and continue not to bother. It's a rich 'mans' game. And continues to be. Golf was ignorant using the field-of-dreams model of 'build it and they will come'. No. Not happening. So those courses close and golf is back to where it always was - with the country club set. America never embraced golf. Now Tiger was embraced but that's about it.
The question is all wrong. America was never in love with golf, only the upper classes were. The middle and lower classes never bothered with the sport and continue not to bother. It's a rich 'mans' game. And continues to be. Golf was ignorant using the field-of-dreams model of 'build it and they will come'. No. Not happening. So those courses close and golf is back to where it always was - with the country club set. America never embraced golf. Now Tiger was embraced but that's about it.
I would argue that with Tiger Wood's ascent, many more middle and especially lower class people began to try the game. Groups of poor, urban kids were going on field trips to the burbs to play.
Thankfully, in less than 2 decades, the brief infatuation wore off.
Wow, I would have to agree with every single post in this thread, yes I've read them all. It's time consuming, who has 4-6 hours to give up, (if you're working a job, have a family, etc.), it's expensive, (it is a rich man's game, and again rich people have more freedom when it comes to time and money), it's very slow paced which is why baseball has seen a drop in popularity. I would argue that Tiger made golf largely popular not just because he was great, he was also interesting. Tiger WASN'T a gentleman, he cursed, spit, threw clubs, and played the game with white hot intensity. That is what attracted People to Tiger and in turn to golf. "Gentlemen" are boring. Nobody, unless you're a tool chest, wants to watch a "gentleman." Remember Miami Hurricanes football in the 80's and 90's, they were great, arguably the best college football dynasty of that era, but they were also extremely polarizing because of all the on and off the field antics, and the over the top swagger the Canes had. That what Tiger was, not just a great golfer, but a different golfer because he did it his way and broke the rules when it came to being a "gentleman."
The question is all wrong. America was never in love with golf, only the upper classes were. The middle and lower classes never bothered with the sport and continue not to bother. It's a rich 'mans' game. And continues to be. Golf was ignorant using the field-of-dreams model of 'build it and they will come'. No. Not happening. So those courses close and golf is back to where it always was - with the country club set. America never embraced golf. Now Tiger was embraced but that's about it.
I would disagree strongly with that. There was strong demand where I lived well before Tiger.
I think the areas around NYC and Boston got it right. I was working class, ascending to middle, but we had resident rates that were below market in Fairfield County and the same held true in Westchester Cty and outside Boston with the MetroParks courses.
Problem was, weekend tee times were so in demand that you'd literally end up with people sleeping in the cars in course parking lots because you had to be there in person to snag one of the prime tee times. These were definitely not the "1%ers".
These were not country club people, but folks who'd definitely play as often as possible on a course they could afford.
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