Golf Industry Leaders Talk Sustainability
Apr 9, 2015; Augusta, GA, USA; Augusta National Golf Club chairman Billy Payne addresses the crowd on the first tee during the first round of The Masters golf tournament at Augusta National Golf Club. Mandatory Credit: Rob Schumacher-USA TODAY Sports
When LPGA Commissioner Mike Whan, PGA TOUR Commissioner Tim Fichem, USGA Executive Director Mike Davis, PGA of America CEO Pete Bevacque, Masters Tournament Chairman Billy Payne and allied golf industry leaders convene a sit-down you know there are going to be some interesting topics and opinions gliding around the table. That’s what happened last week at TPC Sawgrass before the start of THE PLAYERS Championship when exactly the right group jump-started a conversation about growing the Game of Golf and problems of sustainability.
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Although representatives of the European and Asian Tours and collegiate golf programs were missing from the table, given the importance of the meeting and the global scope of the game at the recreational, competitive amateur and professional levels, they’re certain be be engaged as these talks deepen and broaden and drive expansion of several highly successful collaborations already in place.
In addition to managing much of professional golf, this group of heavy-hitters collectively administers four highly successful cooperative programs that are building and sustaining the game by engaging youth: the LPGA/USGA collaborative Girls Golf Program that is introducing an estimated 50,000 young girls to the game annually; the Masters Tournament/USGA/PGA Drive, Chip, and Putt Championship that has already expanded in its 2nd year of implementation to encompass international participants; PGA Junior League Golf, that aims to be engaging 100,000 young golfers by 2020; and the enormously successful LPGA/PGA/Masters Tournament First Tee collaboration that has engaged more than 10 million youth since its inception in 1997.
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Additionally, the PGA’s Get Golf Ready program that’s designed to strengthen recreational golfers’ game through a discounted instructional series, now in its 6th year, has delivered golf instruction to an estimated 358,000 adult students. Two PGA program outcomes stats are very impressive: 62% of Get Golf Ready students are women, three times as great as women’s overall participation in recreational golf; and 82% of Get Golf Ready students continue their participation in recreational golf during the 12 months following completion of their 6-lesson series.
In other words, Get Golf Ready is expanding accessibility to the game to an underserved population who, not coincidentally, controls a substantial amount of discretionary money, and the program is retaining them as golfers, at least in the short term. I’ll be interested in seeing some longer-term retention stats as they become available.
We are happy to lead or follow, where appropriate. . . Billy Payne
The collective organizational commitment to ensuring access to the game of golf at all levels of play that’s represented by these programs and reflected in the sentiments of the sport’s administrative leaders is a near-perfect model of collaboration. In the spirit of the game itself, the greater good — survival of the sport — has trumped organizational self-interest and laid a foundation for golf’s future that can and should be replicated at the regional, state and local levels.
This is the model that could successfully address the problems of overbuilding and overstocking that the golf industry faces today, but to do so will require, again, that self interest take a back seat to the greater good. Some state and regional associations will likely take up this challenge but others will not. Some local communities struggling with too many golf courses and too few golfers will forge a collaborative path to new forms of growth and others, unable to move beyond self-interest, will not.