There is a rash of
suggestions out there that bears witness to the impending demise in golf. And indeed there is a downturn in the
numbers of new participants being recruited to the game in the current
times. The past few years have
seen the number of young players in Britain halved while the USA, the new and
untraditional “home” of golf, has seen half a million regular players desert
the game. Fingers point
continuously at slow play being the culprit. The argument goes that if we somehow jump on the bandwagon
of speeding things up, then all will be hunky-dory in the land of fairways and
greens. Instead of the normal
eighteen holes taking over six hours to play, it will be done and dusted in
half the time, and the young, the old, the great and even the not-so-keen will
flock onto the tee boxes in their millions.
The debate was further
fuelled by Rory McIlory’s comment in recent weeks, when asked by the BBC about
the fall-off in players, and his response gave wings to this notion of slow
play being the slayer of golf.
McIlroy was quick to point out that slow play needed to be eliminated at
grassroots only, while players of his calibre should not be required, or
penalised, for such play.
In my humble opinion and
as a newcomer and beginner in this great game, the argument does not hold up on
many fronts. Little does McIlroy seem
to recognise that slow play, with its painstaking pre-shot routines, focused
study of greens and the steady reconnoitring of terrain for course management,
comes as a top down model. Slow
play is beamed out to every home on the planet through the media of TV. We are all familiar with the edited
cut, the pan of the camera from the popular player to the more obscure one when
the popular player is in contemplative mode. Anyone who has walked a tournament in full swing will know
that it is precisely the interaction of variable speed and pause that causes
the contrast, and therefore the drama of golf. It is a head game that relies on the minute counterbalancing
of concentration, nerve and conscious self doubt that renders a shot effective
or a fail. Slow play is therefore
an integral part of the game and is necessary at amateur and professional
levels in equal proportions.
Most sports are built on
acceleration of thought, grasp of opportunity, speed and competitiveness but
golf stands alone in that it is a game of focus, played one shot at a time, and
is executed in such a manner as to render it almost pedantic as it is played
primarily against the course itself and ultimately against the player and their
capacity to control their clubs and ball.
It is also unique in that it is perhaps the only sport in which the ball
is played away from the player.
Ball sports played against an opponent will trigger the natural fight or
flight response which engenders, anatomically and physiologically, an
adrenaline surge – and hence the capacity for rapid response – while golf
requires the opposite: the calming of the monkey brain. Its very nature is based on a downturn
in response, a calming manner and a slower style of play. These responses will vary from player
to player.
Reducing game time by
nearly half will not necessarily make a round of golf any more attractive to
those in demanding and time-consuming jobs. It is far easier to indulge in many more activities for
relatively short periods of time on a daily basis – like tennis, football,
running or cycling – and see greater results than the time required to grow a
game of golf. Golf is by its
nature slow but that very essence is what makes it attractive, and to seek to
speed it up – the latest fad being in football golf or increasing the hole size
to pizza-sized holes – seems to rob the game of its greatest assets: being
outdoors for long periods of time, employing the mind to work out the changing
facets required in course management, the balancing of club against terrain and
each other, the maintenance and endurance of mind and body in all elements, remaining
calm and relaxed under pressure to produce and perform consistently, and the
social triumph of a day well spent.
In our time-strapped society bent on instant gratification and rewards,
the long traditions of golf hold small attraction to a younger audience. Speeding up slow play will not solve
these problems or increase its appeal.
There is so much more that needs to be addressed – like outdated dress
codes, a myriad of stupid, anarchic rules, a misogynist outlook from a
male-dominated sport, and the poor image perpetually propounded by the Royal
& Ancient.
While sauce for the
goose should equal sauce for the gander at all levels of play, it is naïve for
anybody to believe that eliminating slow play has any solid evidence of
increased recruitment of numbers or, indeed, that it is the only cause of the
game’s loss of appeal. I’ve read a
million reasons why the game of golf is dying – and it is; I could add a
million more of my own – and I might; but they are all down to personal opinions. Not one of them is research-based and
that’s because nil-to-very-little research has been done. Without research, and the subsequent
formulation of a concrete approach from that research, the best response we can
hope for is hotch-potch solutions in isolated pockets of the world. Am I the only idiot on the block who’s
figured out that if golf dies, a whole lot of jobs might go? It’s an industry, right? I cannot fathom why independent
studies, much less meta-analysis, have not been carried out. I work in a world whose very existence depends on these sorts of reports and analyses. There are many stakeholders and
businesses with overt and vested interests in the business side of golf that
could easily head up research, postulate solutions, pilot the ideas, and carry
best solutions into reality. But
it’s not happening. It’s looking
like everyone is out to prove Charles Darwins’ theory all over again – survival
of the fittest.
Here are a few articles
to whet your appetite on the state of play today:
