If it ain’t broke…

You will never see me kicking a soccer ball on a golf course. For the life of me, I don’t understand how that’s supposed to get someone interested in playing golf. Will hitting 9 irons on a soccer field increase interest in soccer?

Somewhere, there’s a disconnect.

I’m not saying everything in golf is perfect. But for a game that has been around for more than 400 years, it’s possible that we are overthinking the need, and the process, to help it to grow. Is growth really what we want? Are we trying to make golf something that it’s not? And if so, who is behind this pressure to grow — and why? What’s in it for them?

In this country, at least, golf has always been a niche sport: open to all but with some significant obstacles to participation. Traditionally, these obstacles have been time and money. There’s also skill, but that’s true of all sports and part of the appeal of golf, and any other sport, is the opportunity to better those skills. Those barriers are why golf will never be basketball, baseball, or even tennis, which have always been more accessible.

Golf is more like polo, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Not every sport has to appeal to everyone or be easily accessible. Consider yachting. Even skiing, assuming you don’t live next to a mountain. They are all niche sports, of great interest to some, a total dud to others. That’s fine.

And golf is fine, just the way it is. Golf has everything one could want — challenge, skills, the opportunity for camaraderie, the great outdoors, beautiful scenery, travel, fun, competition… I could go on and on.

Plus, golf generates billions of dollars in revenue for charity, real estate, equipment, apparel and other businesses. How do we know? Because even while the game has been “dying” — according to some reports — big companies are still lining up to slap their names on tournaments, give millions of dollars to the best players, and entertain their clients in tented villages and on courses.

Golf is not dead, it’s just been on a diet. I happen to think it’s lost a lot of unnecessary and harmful fat so it is much closer in size — and health — to where it should be.

Yet there still are countless initiatives to grow the game, a boiling stew of names and logos and ideas and programs and charities and corporations and private clubs and famous pros trying to fatten it up again.

Pardon my skepticism, but I want to know if these initiatives have been launched to truly help the game or just line the pockets of those most likely to profit from golf’s growth.

Do I have the answers? No, I admit that. But I’m asking questions that I feel should be asked. How broken is golf? How big should it be? Do we want another boom — and the bust that inevitably follows? And who stands to gain?

Should people be encouraged to play golf? Absolutely. It’s a wonderful game. And for those of us in the business, more people might translate into more work and more money. But I think we’ve seen that trying to force the game to grow does not work. Ask the thousands of former employees of now-closed courses and clubs if the “golf boom” of the 1990s was a good thing.

But also ask those of us who genuinely love to play what we think of golf now. Fewer crowds, affordable green fees, great equipment (at lower prices). What’s wrong with golf the way it is?

I do have one answer, or maybe more accurately, one opinion. And that is that too much energy, time and money are being spent trying to grow the game when it would be much more effective and smarter to worry about keeping the game where it is. Making it fun for those who are playing it now, not those we hope to get. I realize that won’t make as much money for companies that depend on regular growth, but it could help firm up the game’s foundation, stop the slide and position golf for a stronger future, a future of slow but regular growth.

This is not about favoring slow play, which ruins the game for so many people. But if it’s my dime, I’ll take my time. If I have five hours to practice and play, why should I rush through it in four-and-a-half because someone else said I should? That doesn’t mean hurting someone else’s enjoyment, but maybe we need another way to think about time, and not just shorter spaces between tee times to squeeze more players onto the course. And, honestly, how many courses are packing in so many people right now that we even have to think that way? Is yours?

Since this is an audience of dedicated professionals whose job is to maintain golf’s glorious fields of play, let’s turn to maintenance and agronomy. Think about all the grow-the-game programs. Have they added to your workload? Made it hard to prepare and maintain your course? Has that extra work translated into more golfers, increased revenue? Or would everything have been just as good, if not better, if you’d gone about business as usual?

Consider maintaining your golf course “down the middle” or moving the tees up. Does that really change what you do? “Down the middle” doesn’t make it easier for the superintendent who has to be responsible for the entire property. Same with forward tees unless you’re shutting down the back tees, too.

Cutting extra-large holes requires special equipment and skills while devaluing the game’s unique challenge. What does FootGolf do to a golf course? Since when does good maintenance drive away potential golfers? Where is the savings?

The “golf boom” was an anomaly. It was never the new normal. Trying to recapture it is only going to hurt us in the long run, as it already has.

Tim Moraghan, principal, ASPIRE Golf (tmoraghan@aspire-golf.com). Follow Tim’s blog, Golf Course Confidential at http://www.aspire-golf.com/buzz.html or on Twitter @TimMoraghan