11. In Search of the Holy Grail?
Golf as a game is in a hole, and it knows it, whilst the elite, professional end of the sport could be heading towards the edge of a precipice, if not next year, or in five-years-time, but, within a decade, things could look quite different, and not for the better.
Time is of the essence and at the heart of golf’s problems, recreational and professional.
We are working longer and harder than ever, we have family demands on our time, the days of, as ex-R&A CEO Peter Dawson once described, “On the Saturday morning when the guy gets up or the lady gets up and out of the marital bed, if you like, and goes off and plays golf with his chums and comes back in the afternoon,” are, for most of us at least, long since gone, the leisure consumer, or sport or sports TV has never had more choice.
And so, golf, at all levels goes off in search of the Holy Grail.
The R&A has concocted a nine-hole championship for amateurs, whilst ignoring the issue of slow play at the Open, when, at St. Andrews in 2015, play was held up for half-an-hour whilst a minor rules infraction was ironed out.
And the European Tour, in league with the Australasian PGA Tour has cooked-up a confusing and convoluted new, ‘Super-6’ format in Perth next month, a regular full-field stroke play, with a regular half-way cut after two rounds, a second cut to 24 after 54 holes, the two-dozen survivors then reverting to a six-hole, match-play shoot-out.
A sledgehammer to crack a nut in a game already bewildering to all but the golfing cognoscenti.
In reality, what golf really needs is to get over itself, lighten-up; at the recreational level, let the whole family play nine or 18 holes as they – the customers - see fit, let them wear shorts, tee shirts, heaven forbid, without collars, make golf less stiff, more informal, even fun!
At the professional end, get rid of those over-officious stewards and their ‘Quiet Please’ signs, let the crowds engage, allow the players to wear shorts, interview the leaders at the halfway house, the days of the stern and perfunctory ‘On the tee from Scotland,’ introductions of the redoubtable Ivor Robson are a thing of the past, build-up the stars of the show with panache, remember golf part of the ‘sports entertainment’ business.
And, if professional golf really wants to get creative, let’s have a WGC Mixed Doubles Match Play, mini-orders of merit with bonus money at the end of each, an Under-25’s Open where players can dress down with the kids; that’s how to develop the female and younger audiences.
But does golf have the vision, let alone the courage, only time will tell, but the very mid-long-term future of the game is at stake?
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