Golf's Greatest Day

For the last couple years I have sporadically presented my opinions through the Web site www.TheNext500Years.com. The site is home to a myriad of musings related to how we might assess the future of golf by reflecting on the approximate five hundred year history of our game.

With that as the preface, I assert that golf's greatest day in its five-hundred-year history was October 9, 2009.

If you are a diehard golf guy/gal and you don't know what that date means, shame on you. As a patriot, I remember where I was when JFK was assassinated, when Neil Armstrong first stepped on the moon, and when the events of 9/11 unfolded.

And, as golfers, we should remember where we were when we first heard that the International Olympic Committee officially announced that the game of golf would rejoin the Olympics in 2016 in Rio de Janeiro.

Golf last was played as an Olympic sport in Paris in 1900 and St. Louis in 1904; before Walter, Bob, Ben, Byron, Sam, Arnie, Jack, young Eldrick and modern media made golf culturally significant.

Folks, this is a BIG DEAL.

This makes Tiger, cavity back irons, metal woods, and Natalie Gulbis' miniskirts look like Bo Peep.

Do you know what this means?

I do.

It means that every podunk country in the world will start scrambling to figure out how to produce Olympic class golfers.

It means the likes of China, Russia, Germany, Korea, Japan, and others are going to invest more dough than is used to make a Man Versus Food pizza to create and expand organized programs to produce golfers.

It means every worthwhile country in the world will be digging their heels in and doing everything reasonable to crank up our great game on their soil.

What's the payoff?

Well, the GAME of golf wins. We get more participants and more lovers of the game.

And, the BUSINESS of golf REALLY wins. We'll sell more Sasquatch drivers, more Pro V1 balls, more Nike shirts (lots more Nike shirts), more Footjoy shoes, more Visiball golf ball finder glasses, more Ballzee pocket golf ball cleaners, more...

You get the picture.

The return of golf to the Olympics represents a shift of monumental proportions within the golf culture. In modern terms, it's a paradigm shift, an inflection point. In anthropological terms, it's on par with the industrial revolution.

But such an event begets disruptive change (like with paradigm shifts, inflection points, and cultural revolutions). The game is going to change. The business is going to expand.

Golf culture is going to hyper-evolve.

Why such big effects on golf, when it wasn't such a big deal with other Olympic sports?

Consider the following:

• Golf is a mainstream sport with massive participation. Active golf participants cross over almost all age groups, a wide range of physical abilities (and disabilities), and even though golf has previously been considered an exclusionary sport, the Olympics will push it into a wider socioeconomic range of participants. Compare this to track and field in which the participants are typically young, athletic, and extensively trained. And, even though track and field is bigger outside the U.S., golf generally has a much bigger following. Most Olympic sports are fairly obscure, and virtually all of them-besides golf-have participation limited or at least heavily weighted to young, fit, specialized athletes.
  
  
• Golf is big business. Besides having large mainstream participation, it requires a lot of stuff: clubs, balls, bags, shoes, gloves, golf courses, golf carts, golf pros, driving ranges, golf resorts, swing aids, simulators, launch monitors... Most sports require not much more than the likes of a ball, good shoes, and some open space.

The Olympic movement is going to make golf "hip," which will make the game a bit less formal. Participants will place more emphasis on performance, and less on decorum. Spectators at events will get more rowdy (we've already had a taste of it at the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup-"Ole, Ole Ole Ole"). The staid game we've known all our lives is going to get a little crazy.

Don't rule out that professionals on the PGA TOUR one day will be members of teams, like NASCAR (Team Nike), wearing uniforms with large numbers on their backs. Countries getting into golf in a big way for the first time will contribute new cultural nuances surrounding the game and some will find their way into the mainstream.

The modern Olympic movement is going to help transform the game of golf into a sport for every man. It's going to get a bit rude, crude, and unattractive, and it's going to be a beautiful thing.

I can't wait.