Golf needs more players and players playing more

    The Morning Nine for Tuesday, February 25, 2014

    How cold is it? Cold enough for a day’s delay in the Morning Nine. This comes straight from the Deep Freeze, still fresh on a Tuesday afternoon.

    1. Walking the aisles of the Chicago Golf Show last Friday, two things were evident.
    First, people who play golf still love golf. Maybe not as many as 10 years ago, but there was a crowd for the first day, with some inspecting clubs for sale in the bargain racks, some taking practice swings on the indoor range, others listing to pros pontificate about the finer points of the game, and some just scooping up brochures from courses near and far.
    Second, that those in the business are worried about the business because of those people who have disappeared from the links in the last decade. They wonder if players will play more after a wicked winter, if improvements at courses will pay for themselves, if rock bottom has been reached, and if it has, will a real rebound commence soon?
    The problem, of course, is that there aren’t enough golfers playing enough rounds to cover each course with players at every hour every day in season. Or even some of the hours on some of the days. At public courses, outside of the weekend morning hours that have been locked up on subscription for years, there are time slots available all summer.
    How do those get filled in? With new golfers. Where will those new golfers come from? And how can players who do play find the time to play more? Those are the billion-dollar questions. From the First Tee to Play Golf America to Play It Forward, a gaggle of new golfers has yet to materialize. If we had an easy answer – or a complicated one, you would read it here.
    2. The CBS golf bigwigs have to be scratching their heads. They get the early network run of the PGA Tour, and end up with winners like Scott Stallings and Jimmy Walker, plus talented-but-unknown Jason Day knocking off Victor Dubuisson in the World Match Play final. NBC starts this weekend after its Olympics run, and has everybody but Walter Hagen in the Honda Classic field. Woods, Mickelson, McIlroy, Scott, Fowler, you name a name and he’s playing.
    3. Next CBS tournament? The Masters. The field should be decent there, no?
    4. A bit of a tournament shuffle in the Midwest finds the Big Ten men’s and women’s championships leaving the French Lick Resort after this spring for parts unknown, with the Senior PGA Championship takes its place there next year.
    5. Len Ziehm notes on his website that there’s a local golf centennial that some (including your obedient servant) have missed: Wilson Sporting Goods, founded in 1914 as Thomas E. Wilson and Co. Wilson’s gone through tough times but has persevered, and still stands tall in River Grove.
    6. Every best wish to Scott Stricker, brother of Steve, on a continued recovery from his recent liver transplant.
    7. Good news from far-off Furman University. The Paladins men’s golf program will live on. The school has canceled canceling the program. Must have been the ghost of Richard Boone haunting the administration that made the difference.
    8. A moment of silence, please, for Harold Ramis, director of “Caddyshack,” still the ultimate golf movie, and one of the most quotable movies of all time. The flag at Bushwood is at half staff.
    9. Finally, this would have appeared yesterday, save for the inability to spell Dubuisson.

    – Tim Cronin